


shaking landings

by singsongsung



Series: tales of an endless heart [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, archie andrews is DONE FEELING WISTFUL, leather jackets are inevitably involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-09 20:13:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11112012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singsongsung/pseuds/singsongsung
Summary: It’s chilly out, but Betty rolls down her window and reaches her hand outside of the car, the wind rushing between her fingers. Her hair flies into her face but she doesn’t seem to mind.Jughead wants to write her down, every bit of her, in this moment. She’s like something from Kerouac. She’s like something full of feeling.Or: Jughead Jones attempts to right (and write) his life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third work in a series. It'll probably make more sense if you read the other two first, but it's not absolutely necessary. 
> 
> Title is from the same song as the epigraph. (Do people who aren't Canadian even care about the Arkells? People should; they're fun.) 
> 
> Archie's song in this chapter is "It's You" by Annie Stela because (a) I cannot pull an Archie Andrews song out of my own brain and (b) in my head Archie's music is apparently deeply influenced by female singers.

_you called me up from a payphone_  
_i said: hang tight, i can drive you home_  
_i pulled on up, and with a southern accent_  
_i offered you my dad’s leather jacket_  
\- the arkells, “leather jacket” 

 

 

_Her marriage dies in the fall, with the leaves on the trees._

Jughead stares at the words he’s just written, the only words in an otherwise blank document. He changes _the fall_ to _autumn_. He takes a drink from the cup of tepid coffee sitting next to him. And then he deletes the sentence and clicks the document closed. 

He can’t write this story now. He shouldn’t write this story, ever, but especially not on this cloudy morning, with Archie Andrews sleeping off last night’s drinks on his sofa. But the second book is, as so many people have said, harder than the first. 

Archie stirs, flopping onto his back with a muffled grown. Jughead closes his laptop.

“Fresh coffee and Advil coming up,” he announces, rinsing out the coffee pot. 

Archie sits up slowly, one hand against his forehead. “Fuck, man,” he says. “What did you let me drink?”

“Hey, they say to never get in the way of a man making bad choices to cope with his divorce.” 

With a slight grimace, Archie swings his feet to the floor but makes no move to get up. “Do you think I should call her?” 

“Archie.” Jughead sets the coffee pot down and levels his friend with a _look_. “No. No, you shouldn’t call her.”

“It’s just so fucking weird,” Archie says, looking dejected. “I don’t know what the right thing to do is. I lived with her for five years, and now I’m just supposed to never see her, never even talk to her?” 

“You might be friends again someday,” Jughead says, scooping coffee grinds. 

Archie gets that look on his face that is both hopeful and unsure, the one that makes his female fans swoon. “Yeah.” He runs a hand through his messy hair. “Thanks for letting me crash, Jug.” 

“Of course,” Jughead says, and he means it, because Archie is his brother, has always been his brother, and after their senior year of high school, which Archie spent in Chicago and Jughead spent in Toledo, they had cooled down enough from the tension of their junior year to piece their friendship back together, this time with even stronger glue. 

They have always been friends, and they always will be. So Archie forgave Jughead for his gun-slinging past, and Jughead forgave Archie for marrying the only girl he’d ever loved.

 

 

Honestly, the divorce was the only thing that ever truly surprised him. 

After high school, Veronica jetted off to Europe, he headed to Bowdoin with a death-grip on the scholarship he’d managed to get, and fate had thrown Archie and Betty together again. Archie went to NYU for music, Betty to Columbia for journalism, and they got a two-bedroom apartment together, just as friends, just for the convenience. Three months later, when Archie called and struggled through some preliminary small talk, Jughead knew _I want Betty to be my girlfriend_ was coming the second he answered the phone. 

For a couple bitter weeks, all he could think was _of course_. He thought it over and over: _of course of course of course_. He even discussed it with Veronica over WhatsApp, both of them walking the line between feelings of resignation and annoyance regarding the inevitability of it all. She’d propositioned him ( _guess we have to have revenge sex_ ), and after he stumbled over an answer in which he said some bullshit about how much he valued their friendship, she replied _OMG Jughead I was joking, but I’m happy to know I mean that much to you_ followed by a long string of emojis, the meaning of which he couldn’t decipher. 

Archie and Betty getting together didn’t surprise him. He wasn’t at all shocked when Archie started writing songs about her, or when their nauseatingly cute couple photos started showing up on social media. By the time Archie proposed, two years after their awkward phone call, Jughead had slipped back into the role of his early adolescence, listening to Archie talk about Betty as if he had absolutely no skin in the game. He’d even seen Betty by then - just once, but still - and they’d both survived the encounter. 

Jughead was the best man at their wedding. He gave a fucking toast. He brought a date. He was alone with Betty for only two minutes, when she caught him smoking on the balcony of the main building on the pretty New England vineyard where the wedding was held. She looked so beautiful it could have knocked him off his feet and she couldn’t quite maintain eye contact with him. 

For years now (five years, but who’s counting), Jughead has steadily remained Archie’s friend, and that is the pin that holds them all together. It’s like they’ve all dropped two decades off their lives and they’re six years old again, and Jughead loves Archie, and Betty loves Archie, and it is their love for him that defines the quasi-friendship they have. In the years since the wedding Jughead has seen Betty with relative frequency, and they’ve found their footing in the patterns of their childhood. They make small talk, they tease Archie, they argue casually about books. No one ever mentions high school, and that’s never weird, because their avoidance of the topic isn’t rooted in the fact that Jughead and Betty dated, lived together, and fell apart dramatically then, but in the fact that high school was a pretty terrible time for all of them, a past they prefer not to think about. 

And so Jughead was never surprised. Not by their marriage, not by the barrage of photos from their two-year wedding anniversary trip to Paris, not by the way Archie sincerely thanked his wife when he won an emerging songwriter award. He wasn’t surprised when last year Archie started talking about babies. When Archie called him and started a sentence with _Betty and I…_ Jughead was quite certain that, given the way things were going, he’d end it with _are having quadruplets!_ or something equally impossible that would hit him over the head, yet again, with the fairytale perfection of Archie and Betty. 

But Archie had said, _Betty and I are getting divorced._

 

 

After the divorce, Archie becomes Jughead’s writing companion. They spend a lot of evenings in his loft together. He sits on a stool at the counter and tugs at his hair in frustration, repeatedly deleting paragraphs, even pages, and Archie sits on the couch with his guitar on his lap, scribbling viciously on sheets of paper with a miserable look on his face. Neither of them seems to be having much success, but Jughead figures the company is good for them both. 

Jughead is trying to write a novel that follows the tone of his last, something gritty, something noir, something with a narrator just one step outside of a macabre puzzle. He hasn’t been wildly successful, not by any means, but he does get the occasional royalty check, and his agent is desperate to maintain, through careful curation, the image of J. Jones III as a damaged soul who pours his feelings into books for young women to devour. 

His agent and his publishing house want him to write a page-turner they can slap a shadow-filled cover on and market as the next _Gone Girl_ (no matter how many years go by, that remains, to his endless frustration, the yardstick for a good psychological thriller), but Jughead’s brain and heart aren’t in it. He wants to write what he’s always written, the story in his life right now, the one he observes from the fringes. 

The images in Jughead’s mind are of blonde hair tangled in the wind, of tan lines left like tattoos when wedding rings are removed, of a girl whose childhood dreams slip like grains of sand through her long, lean fingers. 

Sometimes, when the music in his headphones is soft, or there are a couple seconds of dead air between songs, he hears Archie singing quietly, testing out chords. His lyrics are variations on a single theme: _Eyes so green in the night’s streetlights. On that day in November, I’ll always remember. You said ‘don’t say you’re sorry’ and oh how you cried._

Jughead wonders if they’ll ever talk about it, how all their words centre on the same subject, how all the writer’s block crammed into his Brooklyn loft has the same pair of eyes, the same fleeting smile, the same sense of loss at its heart. 

 

 

He’s trudging along through the monotony of his daily life (morning: contemplate mortality; afternoon: spend several hours at a private school helping six to twelve-year-olds improve their reading comprehension; evening: eat something unhealthy and try to write) when the phone call surprises him. He’s walking home after picking up shawarma from his favourite hole in the wall, and answers the phone with his headphones still in his ears, speaking into the little attached mic. 

“Hello?”

“Juggie, hi.” 

Her voice very nearly stops him in his tracks. Part of it is the simple fact that she’s calling him - Betty hasn’t called him in a couple years, not since she was organizing a surprise party for Archie (a dull reminder that Archie’s the kind of guy who likes a surprise party, who appreciates the effort, who doesn’t freak out and try to bail). Part of it is the fact that he and Betty have exchanged exactly two pieces of communication since the divorce: his text said _hope you’re doing okay_ and hers _I am, thanks_. And part of it is that she calls him Juggie, which she hasn’t done since she was sixteen years old. 

“Betty,” he replies. “Hey.” 

“How are you?” 

Jughead cracks a half-smile; Betty’s good manners are bred right into her bones. “I’m fine. How are you?” 

She sighs. He thinks he can hear nerves in that sigh, but he might be imagining it. “I just - I just want to make it clear that I’m not calling you as… as like - like a rebound-type thing. That would be ridiculous, right?”

“Uh.” Jughead licks his lips, somewhat taken aback. “Right.” 

“Okay.” There’s some shuffling on her end, a clanking sound. “I sort of need a favour.” 

Intrigued, he asks, “What’s up?” 

She sighs again. “I’m pretty sure someone stole my purse. I don’t have my phone or my wallet and I’m… in Hoboken.” 

“What?” Jughead says. He can feel his brow crease. He’s home now, and he jogs up the three flights of stairs to his loft. 

“I need a ride,” Betty says. “And you’re the only one I know with a car.” 

“Why are you in - ”

There’s more shuffling on her end, more clanking. When she starts talking again she speaks more quickly, “Listen, the bartender gave me a dollar for the payphone and I’m on my last quarter, so I can’t keep talking, but if you can’t give me a lift, I totally understand.” She exhales. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t even have - ”

“Betty,” Jughead cuts in. He rifles around the bowl he throws random crap into for the keys to his truck. “I’ll come get you. What’s the address?” 

She gives it to him and he scribbles it down on the brown napkin from the restaurant. 

“Thank you,” she says softly. “Really. I owe you.” 

Jughead shakes his head even though she can’t see him. “Hang tight,” he says. “I’ll see you in about an hour.”

 

 

The navigation on his phone leads him to a bar that’s not exactly run down but has certainly seen better days. He realizes, once he’s parked the car, that he’s been clenching his jaw, grinding his back teeth together. He’s nervous - he hasn’t been really and truly alone with Betty in years. 

She’s easy to find once he walks inside, the same spot of brightness she’s always been. She’s been wearing her hair a bit shorter since college, soft waves that rest atop her shoulders instead of her old ponytail. She’s sitting at the bar in a leather skirt that’s ridden up her thighs since she’s crossed her legs, and her shirt is a soft, periwinkle blue, the kind of colour that always makes him think of her. 

Jughead summons his confidence and sidles up to her, leaning against the bar. “Why, Betty Cooper, as I live and breathe,” he says in a half-hearted Southern accent, aiming for levity. 

Her eyes meet his, and there’s a smile in them to match the one on her lips. “Of all the gin joints in all the world, he walks into exactly the one I directed him to,” she banters back, and it’s the wry easiness of her tone, the flush in her cheeks, that makes him realize she’s a little tipsy, an empty beer bottle sitting in front of her. 

He sits down on the stool next to hers. “So, I’m going to need the story,” he says. He catches the bartender’s eye, gestures to Betty’s empty bottle and then holds up two fingers. 

She sighs. “Veronica,” she says, which makes Jughead smile, because really, that’s almost an explanation in and of itself. “She said I needed to… you know, get over the divorce by getting under someone else. She said I should get out of the city and find a ‘disposable lay.’” Betty makes lazy air quotes around those words, her nose slightly scrunched. The bartender sets two bottles in front of them and she takes a sip from hers. “So, I did, because she wouldn’t stop bugging me, and because I know she means well, but I’m not… exactly in a place to get under anyone. I was sitting here, and I was pretty lost in thought - my purse was where you’re sitting now, and when I went to get my phone, it was gone.” 

“Did you call the police?”

“What’s the point?” Betty asks with a little shrug. “Nobody here saw anything; it’s lost for good. I only had a little cash, and I’ll cancel my credit cards. I’m due for an upgrade on my phone anyway.” 

Jughead nods slowly. “Look at you,” he says. “Just going with the flow.” 

She shrugs again, offering him a smile. “Sometimes there’s nothing else you can do.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and when her eyebrows lift in a wordless question he adds, “About your purse. And about the break-up.” 

Betty looks down at her beer. “Thanks.” 

“Are you doing alright? For real?” 

“It was… amicable.” She traces a finger through the condensation on the side of the bottle. “I love Archie. That - it hasn’t changed, and that’s the crazy thing. I love him just as much now as I did on the day he proposed.” She sighs. “Which means I probably never should have married him.” 

“You were young,” he says. “Really young.” 

“I was in love with an idea, not a person,” Betty says. “I was in love with the story of Archie and me. I thought we’d tell our grandkids one day about how I used to shine a flashlight through his window when we were supposed to be asleep. And Arch - it was the same for him. He was in love with… perfect Betty Cooper. But I don’t even remember the last time I was her. I don’t know if I ever was, really.” 

Jughead nods and takes a long drink of his beer. He’s not quite sure what to say to her - they’ve never come close to having this kind of conversation before, not in years. 

Mirroring his movements, Betty takes her own long drink. “He probably told you, right?” she guesses. “That we were trying to get pregnant?” 

He blinks at her, mildly surprised, but nods again. “Yeah, he told me.”

“That’s how I knew it was over,” she says very softly. One of her hands rests over her knee, and he can see her manicured nails beginning to sink into her skin. “I took a pregnancy test, and when it was negative, I started to cry. Archie was trying to comfort me but I was just - I was so relieved.” 

“Why?” Jughead asks, matching her soft tone. 

She looks at him with wet eyes. “I couldn’t do it again, I couldn’t go back to that. I never wanted to be her. Perfect Betty Cooper.” 

He reaches out and gently slips his hand between hers and her kneecap. The faint indentations there begin to fade almost immediately. He says, “I know.” 

 

 

He pays Betty’s six-drink tab (five hers, one his) and waves away her insistence that she’ll pay him back as soon as possible, steering her out of the bar and toward his truck with a hand hovering very close to her back. She smells like sweet, flowery shampoo and wheaty beer. 

It’s chilly out, but Betty rolls down her window and reaches her hand outside of the car, the wind rushing between her fingers. Her hair flies into her face but she doesn’t seem to mind. 

Jughead wants to write her down, every bit of her, in this moment. She’s like something from Kerouac. She’s like something full of feeling. 

The radio plays quietly and the wind is loud in the car. “Is Arch okay?” Betty asks. 

“Yeah,” Jughead says. “I think so. He’s channeling everything into some extremely depressing songs.” 

She laughs softly, wistfully. “Same old, then.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, glancing over at her. “Same old story.” 

 

 

Betty rolls up her window after a while and rests her forehead against the glass. She wraps her arms around herself like she’s cold, but she doesn’t say anything. She tucks one of her legs up underneath herself, and Jughead tells himself very firmly to look at the road, not at her thighs. 

He feels like they’ve travelled ten years back in time. Betty’s skin looks exactly the same, pale and smooth, having lost most of its summer tan. The sight of her blonde hair in his peripheral vision reminds him of car rides all those years ago, driving her to or from shifts at Pop’s diner in companionable silence. 

The song on the radio changes, and Jughead passively recognizes the first few chords. It’s not until a voice joins the music that he recognizes the song - it’s Archie’s, the only song of his that’s made the charts and managed to stick around. He wrote it six years ago, after Betty agreed to marry him. 

“Oh, I may be young,” Archie sings. “But I know when I love someone, when I love someone, and it’s you, oh, it’s you. It never changed for me, it will always be - ”

Jughead jams the power button on the radio with more force than necessary, cutting Archie off abruptly. 

“It’s okay, Jug,” Betty says softly. She sounds very tired. 

“You want me to turn it back on?” 

She straightens up in her seat, stretching both legs out in front of her, and throws him a smile that he can tell, even from a quick glance, is sad at its edges. “It’s not _that_ okay.” 

He smiles back at her, then says, “You look like you’re freezing, Betts.” As soon as he calls her that, that old, familiar nickname of hers, he wonders if it’s another qualifier to be a member of the I-Loved-Betty-Cooper-Once club, if it’s something only he and Archie share, something only they still call her. He knows she goes by Beth in her professional life now - a name that’s a little more mature, a little less mid-century. 

“I’m okay,” Betty says, but he knows it’s a lie, and he reaches back to rifle around in the backseat. He tosses aside some discarded fast food wrappings and hauls a jacket up into the front seat, setting it on her so that he can put both hands on the wheel again. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the slightest shake to Betty’s hands as she touches it, fingers sliding slowly over fabric, and regret bursts somewhere inside of him, shockwaves of it running through his chest, his stomach, his limbs. It’s not _the_ leather jacket, not the one she used to wear, not the one that ultimately split them apart, but it’s a leather jacket nonetheless, and all of that might be a decade behind them, but there are bits of the wounds that still feel fresh. 

“Betts,” he says very softly; he means _I’m sorry_. 

With that fierce determination she gets sometimes, she pulls the jacket over top of her chest and arms to keep warm, and presents a firm change of subject: “Are you hungry?” 

Jughead releases the breath he’d been holding. He grins, meeting her eyes for a beat. “Have you met me, Betty?” he asks, and he takes the next exit. 

 

 

When they get back to the city, Jughead has demolished three hamburgers and Betty is still nibbling at her fries. She’s wearing his jacket now, folded tight around her chest to keep herself warm, and in the leather jacket, the leather skirt, she looks like a girl she might’ve become once, before he turned her away. 

She asks him to drop her off at Veronica’s place on the Upper West Side, where she’s been staying since the divorce. As they sit in traffic, Betty sips her milkshake and asks, “What movie are you seeing tomorrow?” 

Jughead glances over at her, somewhat surprised, and Betty looks back at him with a challenge in her eyes.

“What?” she says. “You think I’d forget your birthday?”

“No,” he says, but in truth, he’s put so much effort into trying to forget things about her that he wouldn’t be surprised if she did the same. “I just… haven’t decided yet, actually.” 

She toys with her straw; it makes squeaking sounds against the plastic drink cover it’s shoved through. “Is Arch going with you?” 

“No, he has that thing. The workshop.”

“Oh. Right.” 

He finds a place to pull over fairly close to Veronica’s building. “Door to door service,” he says. “Almost.” 

Betty looks over at him with those earnest eyes of her, so pretty beneath her carefully curled lashes. “Thank you, Jughead.” 

“Anytime,” he says easily. He examines her face. “Hey, Betts - how did you know my number? If you lost your phone, you didn’t have your contact list.” 

“Oh, I - I memorized it. When we went to Europe.” She shrugs. “The guidebook said it was good to memorize a number or two for people back home, just in case.” 

That trip was three years ago, but he doesn’t point that out. “Ah,” he says. 

Betty slips out of his jacket and hands it to him; Jughead tosses it into the back again. “Well, um, thank you,” she says. “Seriously. I don’t know what I would’ve done without - ”

He leans over the centre console slightly, just enough to bump her elbow with his own. “Stop.” 

She flashes him a quick smile - it’s nervous, almost sheepish. “Have a good night, Jug.” 

“You too,” he says as she opens the door. “Call those credit card companies.” 

Betty nods. She closes the door behind her but then she doesn’t move, just stands totally still on the curb for a moment before turning back around to face him. She opens the door back up. 

“Forget something?” 

“Do you want me to go with you?” she asks. “To the movies. Tomorrow. Since Arch can’t.” She swallows. “I’ll buy your ticket, and your snacks. To make today up to you.” 

“Betty, c’mon, you don’t have to - ” He stops halfway through his protest. She’s got those earnest eyes again, this time with a dash of hope thrown in, dancing in her irises, and Jughead is suddenly sixteen years old, putty under her gaze. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. I’ll pick you up at eight.” 

She smiles at him, simple and sweet. After she closes the truck’s door, he watches her walk inside, following the movement of her bare legs. 

Jughead blows out a breath and leans back in his seat. On the horizon in front of him, peeking through the city’s tall buildings, the sun is setting. The sky is burning red. 

 

 

tbc.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank you all enough for your feedback! 
> 
> A couple people have asked for my tumblr - if you want to follow me and/or chat on there, my 'handle' is lessoleilscouchants.

Jellybean calls at the crack of dawn, crowing ‘Happy Birthday’ into the phone before Jughead can even open his eyes. He pulls a pillow over his face to block out the sunlight streaming into the loft as he listens to her rendition of the song, which is surprisingly off-key for someone so intensely interested in music. 

“Thanks, Jelly,” he says when she’s done. “Even though I could’ve used a couple more hours of sleep.”

“I thought old people got up early,” she says, all innocence.

“Ha ha,” he says flatly. 

“You’re almost _thirty_ , Jug,” she says, gleeful in the way of a girl who’s still looking forward to her twenty-first birthday and is therefore unbothered by her own aging. 

“Being three years away from something doesn’t count as almost,” he protests, but she’s already handing the phone over to his mother, who also wishes him happy birthday.

“Thanks,” he says, uncovering his face. He lets the sun sting his eyes as he asks, “You heard from Dad recently?” 

The answer, predictably, is no. 

 

 

Jughead is brewing coffee, and wondering if maybe this is the year he should actually start working out and eating healthy, when there’s a knock on the door. 

He opens it wearing only a pair of plaid pyjama pants, and Veronica swoops in like the hurricane she’s always been, shoving a box with near-painful force against his bare chest. “Cupcakes from Magnolia,” she says breezily, strolling past him. “Happy birthday.” 

“Uh, thanks,” Jughead says, rubbing briefly at his chest. He follows her into the kitchen, sets the box down, and grabs a sweater, tugging it on over his head. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this early morning visit?” 

“May I?” she asks, already pouring herself a cup of coffee. 

Jughead levels her with a mildly frustrated look. “Why even ask, Ronnie?”

“Don’t pout,” she says, and nods to the bakery box. “Those are triple chocolate.” 

In spite of himself, he peeks into the box and finds that the cupcakes do look incredibly chocolate-y. He takes one out and bites into it, watching with amusement as Veronica searches his fridge for milk, looks deeply unsatisfied by what she finds, and settles for putting two heaping teaspoons of sugar into her coffee. She stirs, sets her used spoon in his sink, and then turns to face him, leaning back against the counter. 

“Are you trying to get Betty back?” she asks. 

Jughead nearly chokes. “What? No. Of course not.” 

“But the two of you are going out tonight.” 

“Going out… into the world, yes. Not going out on a date.” He almost cringes; this conversation feels so juvenile, like it’s a piece of history they’re reenacting. “You shouldn’t be interrogating me, Ronnie, you should be thanking me. I’m the one who picked Betty up after your horrible find-a-hookup-in-New-Jersey plan went south.” 

“Hm.” Veronica takes a sip from her mug. “I could have sent a car, you know. But she chose to call you.” 

“She was probably embarrassed,” he says, crinkling the paper from the bottom of the cupcake in his hand. “You know, that she failed in the ridiculous mission you sent her on.” When she still looks unconvinced, he says, “Jesus, Veronica. Her divorce isn’t even a month old yet.” 

Veronica is quiet for a beat, staring into her cup of coffee, before she says, “You didn’t see what happened. After. She was a _complete_ wreck, Jughead. Her hands were a total mess. She had to go on medication - ”

He stiffens. “If you want to point fingers when it comes to Betty’s depression, Alice Cooper is where you should be looking.” 

“I know your intentions were… noble, if confused. But you hurt her. Badly.” 

“I’m _aware_ , Veronica.” 

She sets her jaw. “Don’t do it again.” 

Jughead glares at her, somewhat stung. “I wouldn’t,” he manages to say. “I would never.” 

Her eyes soften, just a little. “But you did.” 

He exhales. “Are you really doing this? Crashing into my apartment first thing in the morning to give me relationship advice? I don’t think you’re qualified, Ronnie.” He throws a pointed look at the ostentatiously large diamond on her left hand. “I know what you do when you’re in Montreal.” 

Anger flashes through her eyes, and through gritted teeth, she says, “I told you that in confidence.” 

For a moment, he feels bad, because she’s right. In the strange way their friendships have restructured since college, he’s found himself frequently paired off not as he once was with his best friend Archie, or his girlfriend Betty, but with Veronica. He values that, values her - for years she’s been with him, on the outside of a relationship that only very recently disintegrated. 

So he says, “Sorry.” He flashes her a quick grin, teases lightly, “I’m kind of bitchy this early in the morning.” 

Veronica rolls her eyes and he knows she’s forgiven him. “She’s just - she really is doing okay. Even with the end of the saga of Archie and Betty. I don’t want that to change.” 

“Neither do I,” Jughead says seriously. “I’m not trying to date Betty Cooper.”

“Andrews,” she reminds him with the lift of one perfectly arched brow. She sets her mug down. “I have a yoga class. Enjoy your broody birthday.” She pats his shoulder as she walks by him. 

Once she’s gone, Jughead sits down at the kitchen table. All thoughts of healthy food and workouts have vanished; he pulls his computer over, opens it, and eats another cupcake. 

 

 

The last, struggling rays of the sun are finally giving up for the day when he picks Betty up. He’s on foot; he took the subway and together they’ll walk to a nearby theatre. 

She’s waiting for him in the lobby, leaning against a leather chair and wearing a pair of black leggings and one of those slouchy-but-stylish sweaters girls are into. She smiles when she sees him, and his stomach does a flip so familiar, so expected, that he barely even notices. 

“Ready to paint the town red?” he asks her. 

Betty tucks her hair behind one of her ears. “Happy birthday, Jug.” 

“Thanks.” He angles his body back toward the door. “Let’s go?”

She nods, falling into step with him, and they head for the theatre. 

Jughead sneaks the occasional glance at her as they walk. Betty’s really come into herself - she’s even more beautiful now than she was as a teenager, and she wears that beauty with more confidence. Tonight, she wears ankle boots with short heels that clack against the sidewalk. She smells like the musk of perfume; she wears her hair tied half-back and her makeup makes her cheekbones stand out in her face. 

When he looks at her, he wants to say so many things. He wants to say, _Betts, you look so beautiful_ like he used to as a smitten high school junior. He wants to say, _I’m happy we’re doing this. I’ve missed you, all these years._ Most of all, he wants to say, _I wanted this for you. I wanted you to be this beautiful, and this sure, and this safe. Betty, do you see that now?_

What he does say is: “So, how’s work going?” 

Betty makes a face and shrugs. “It’s going.” 

“That good?” he asks, smiling. 

She looks over at him and smiles back. “It’s fine, really. I keep busy. It’s just… you know, not quite what I imagined, when I was younger. I wanted to be some hard-hitting invesitigative journalist. But I’m just writing copy.” 

“Hey, you’ll get there one day,” he says. “You’ve got tons of time. No one’s born Lois Lane.” 

“But some of us,” Betty says, “are published authors.” 

“I got lucky,” he says, looking down at the sidewalk. 

“No, you didn’t, Jug. You wrote a great book and people wanted to read it.” Her smile, this time, is wry. “No one feels that way about what I write.” 

“Not true,” he says. “I found your piece about the feral cats very touching.” 

Betty’s eyebrows lift. “You read the site?” 

He shrugs. “There, uh… there was a period there where Archie’d share everything you wrote on Facebook.” 

“Right.” 

There’s a moment of awkward silence and then Jughead says, “Sorry. I don’t really know if it’s okay to bring up the A-word.” 

“It is,” Betty says, but the softness of her voice contradicts her. She lifts her chin and says, “Tell me about your job.” 

So he does. 

 

 

He picks a horror movie, his favourite genre for a birthday flick. Betty elbows him away when he tries to pay for his own ticket, and she buys them a junk food feast, sodas and popcorn and five kinds of candy. 

The previews start about two minutes after they sit down, saving them from more conversation. Jughead tries to pace himself with the popcorn so that Betty can also get some of the good, extra-buttery stuff near the top. 

The last time he was at the movies with Betty was exactly eleven years ago to the day. They’d never gone again during their relationship - once they were living alone in his dad’s trailer, their budget was strict and limited to necessities. 

So much of it is the same. She’s wearing a grey sweater; she’s holding a giant cup of diet soda; she catches his eye when she wants the twizzlers. She’s an easy scare now just like she was at fifteen, her shoulders jumping in fright, her fingers splayed over her face. She ends up with her knees pulled up to her chin, her feet on her seat, a half-grimace on her face in expectation of the next moment of terror. 

“Hey,” Jughead whispers, leaning toward her, his mouth by her ear. “Sorry. I forgot that even _The Happening_ scared you.” 

Betty turns to him, her eyes reflecting the blue light of the screen. “The trees were _killing people_ ,” she whispers back defensively, one corner of her mouth quirking up in a smile. 

In the darkness, their faces are so very close. 

 

 

He walks her back to Veronica’s place, their footsteps in sync on the sidewalk. 

“Did you have a good birthday?” Betty asks. Her lipstick is gone, lost to salty popcorn and the straw of her soda, and it makes her mouth look vulnerable, somehow. 

“Yeah,” Jughead says. “I did.” 

“You liked the movie?” 

“Yeah, it was alright,” he says easily. 

“Alright?” Betty repeats. “Jug, I’m not going to sleep for a week. You better have _loved_ that movie.” 

He makes a faux-serious face. “Ten out of ten. Cinematic masterpiece. Someone call the critics.” 

She rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “I can’t get that part in the closet out of my head,” she says, shuddering. 

Jughead grins. “You mean with the faceless - ”

“Stop.” Betty shoves at him halfheartedly, and it’s stupid, how it feels light and silly between them. “Jerk.” 

Still grinning, he says, “It was a good time. I’m about an hour away from a great sugar coma. Thanks for treating me.”

She shrugs. “Thanks for picking me up in Hoboken.” 

She’s not quite looking at him, and Jughead tilts forward slightly, trying to catch her gaze. “You know you didn’t really owe me for that, right?”

Betty slows her pace a bit and meets his eyes. “No,” she confesses. “I don’t.” Her teeth dig into her bottom lip. “I don’t know much anymore.” 

 

 

In the lobby, when Jughead shoves his hands in the pockets of his lightweight coat and offers her his thanks again, says he hopes she has a good night, Betty looks at him like he has two heads. 

“No,” she says. “No way. You’re coming up. Veronica and Griff are at some gala, and you are coming upstairs to check for ghost children.” 

“Betty,” he says on a laugh, but she looks right at him as she presses the button for the elevator, and she’s serious. 

Veronica’s the hostess among them, so he’s been to the apartment she shares with her filthy-rich fiancé numerous times. It’s designed in a smooth, minimalist way, punctuated by various abstract statues. 

As Betty hangs up her coat and sets her shoes neatly on a shelf in the closet, he asks, “Are we still not allowed to mock Griff for being named Griff?”

“It’s the number one rule,” Betty says lightly. 

For a minute, they look at each other. Betty shoves the sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows, as if she’s suddenly warm. It’s the most isolated they’ve been with each other since New Jersey; they’re even more alone now than they were in the car, with other vehicles passing on either side of them.

Jughead clears his throat. “Want me to check your closet for monsters?” 

Some of Betty’s tension seems to slip away. “Please.” 

She’s staying in a guest room, the bed made up with a floral-printed comforter and a giant heap of throw pillows. Betty’s makeup scattered across the vanity, her laptop on the desk, and a few things on the dresser are the only signs that it’s actually being lived in. 

Jughead makes a show of sweeping aside her clothes - blazers and skirts for work, dresses, a few complicated strappy tops - to look for any faceless child ghosts. “I think we’re good here,” he announces. 

“Thanks,” Betty says. She’s got her arms wrapped loosely around herself, holding her own elbows. 

He examines her. “Are you actually scared?” 

She shrugs. “It was a horror movie. It’s supposed to _horrify_ you.” 

Before he can talk himself out of it, he says, “Want me to hang around for a bit?” 

There’s something like relief in her face. “Maybe for just an hour? I want to watch some TV, something funny. I need a distraction.” 

“Sure,” he says. “Whatever you want.” 

 

 

Betty finds a channel playing a marathon of some sitcom and curls up on the couch under a blanket. Veronica’s couch is, thankfully, very long, so he can sit at the other end of it with space for two people between them. 

She passes out halfway through the second episode, snoring very softly. She’s shifted to lay her cheek against the backrest, a position that won’t stay comfortable for long. 

Jughead takes a second to look at her, the hair falling against her cheek, the mole she’s never liked, the soft flutter of her lashes. It seems like a dream sometimes, that she used to sleep in his cramped twin bed with the squeaky springs. 

He sighs and flicks off the TV. Carefully, so cautiously that he holds his breath, he untucks the blanket from around her and scoops her into his arms. She stirs only slightly, and he carries her to her room. 

He lays Betty down on one side of the bed and reaches over to grab the comforter from the other side, laying it over her like a cocoon. With careful fingers, he lifts a lock of hair off her face. Her nose wrinkles and she buries her face in the pillow. 

Jughead grabs the small moleskine from his back pocket, locates a pen on Betty’s desk, and scribbles on a piece of paper that he then rips out and lays on her bedside table: _No ghosts. I checked the vents._

 

 

He wakes in the morning to a text from her: _thanks, ghostbuster._

 

 

“Bro, seriously,” Archie says, pacing Jughead’s living room. “I think I had a breakthrough at the workshop.” 

Jughead believes him - Archie’s got more life to him after two weeks at his songwriter’s workshop than he’s had in months. “That’s great, man.” 

“Yeah, it’s like I’m finally back into… I don’t know, a groove? New lyrics are popping into my head all the time.” 

“Anything you want to test out on your least forgiving audience?” Jughead offers with a grin. 

“Not yet.” Archie drops down on the couch. “But thanks.” 

“Hey, my ears are always open,” Jughead quips. “I’m happy for you, Arch. You look… ”

“Less like a kicked puppy?” Archie volunteers, smiling. “That’s what Veronica said.”

“She’s a wordsmith, that one,” he says wryly, moving into the kitchen. “Want a beer?” 

“Sure, yeah.” Archie sinks back into the sofa’s worn cushions. “So how’s it going for you?”

“For me?” Jughead echoes. For a split second, he’s seized by guilt. 

“Yeah. The writing.” 

“Oh. Oh, uh, yeah. Not so great.” He walks back into the living room and hands Archie a bottle. 

“Too bad,” Archie says. “Maybe you need a retreat of some kind. I swear, it really works.”

“Sounds fun, but I can’t exactly take the time off during the school year.” Jughead sits down. “And hopefully by the summer, I’ll have something like a draft.” 

“You definitely will,” Archie says, full of his newfound cheerful confidence. “Hey, Juggie, I’m sorry about missing your birthday.” 

“I turned twenty-seven,” Jughead shrugs. “It’s not like you missed a party and a piñata.” 

“Sure, but your birthday’s your birthday, man. And we have a tradition.” 

“I survived,” Jughead says easily. “Saw a mediocre movie, ate a bunch of junk. It was fine.”

“You go by yourself?” 

For a moment, he contemplates telling Archie. He tells himself it’s not that big of a deal - Archie and Betty are divorced; he and Betty are friends. But those are the facts without a shred of nuance; in reality, it’s all so much more complicated. 

“Yeah,” Jughead says, staring studiously at a point where the paint is chipping on his wall. “I went by myself.” 

 

 

(He was smoking when she stepped outside. 

He could hear it, how her breath caught before she said, “Oh. Sorry.” 

Jughead looked at her and he could feel himself cataloguing all her details: the wisps of hair escaping from the braid arranged like a crown on her head, the delicate lace of her dress, the champagne-induced flush of her cheeks, the freshly-polished rings on her fingers catching the sun’s rays. “No apologies needed,” he said. 

Betty moved to the railing of the balcony, looking out over the vineyard. “It’s hot in there.” 

“Want me to go talk to someone about the air conditioning?” he asked, taking a drag on his cigarette. When she glanced at him like his suggestion surprised her, green eyes on his face for just an instant, he added, “That seems to fall in the realm of the best man's duties.” 

Her hands knotted together; she twirled her engagement ring around her finger. “Those things will kill you, Jug.”

He shrugged. “There are worse ways to go.” 

She gave him another one of those fleeting looks, this time with her eyebrow arched, and he sighed before putting the cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. He stayed where he was, leaning against the wall of the building, and she stayed where she was, several feet in front of him, staring out into the vineyard like she was surveying her future. 

Jughead cleared his throat, wondering if he should leave her. “Great day for a wedding.” 

“Yeah,” Betty said softly. Her hands slid over her hips, smoothing non-existent wrinkles out of her gown. “It’s beautiful.” 

He straightened up from the wall and went to join her at the railing, leaning his elbows on it. In his peripheral vision, he saw her fingers curl around the rail, knuckles turning white. 

Without meaning to say the words aloud, he asked her, “You happy, Betts?” 

In the structured bodice of her dress, her chest lifted and fell very quickly. When he turned to her, she was looking at him, something akin to hurt in her eyes. 

Her voice so soft it could have drifted away on the breeze, she said, “Of course.”)

 

tbc.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended soundtrack for this chapter: "Feel It Still" by Portugal. The Man.

For several weeks, Jughead doesn’t see Betty, which, really, shouldn’t seem strange. Betty’s been appearing in his life every few weeks for years, then falling off his radar once more until he sees her again. It’s normal, but something about spending two straight evenings with her must have thrown him off, because it doesn’t feel as natural as it did before. 

He shouldn’t expect to see her, and he knows that. She and Archie probably made custody arrangements in a lawyer’s cushy office: he belongs to Archie now, Veronica to Betty. There’s no reason for the friendship they’ve built since Jughead moved to New York to change. 

And yet - something feels different. 

 

 

Veronica throws a holiday party. Jughead knows that the future Mrs. Griffin Greenwich’s invitations are non-negotiable, but he tries to get out of it anyway. He has no interest in spending time with the people he went to Riverdale High with, or with Griff’s fraternity brothers, or with Veronica’s old prep school friends. 

“Absolutely not, Jughead,” she says before he can even get halfway through his lie about coming down with the flu. “I don’t care if you think you’re coming down with the plague. You better be there.”

He heaves a sigh. “Ronnie… ”

“No,” she says firmly. “You’re coming to the party. I already talked _both_ B and Archie into coming, so you have to be there to help me with any potential damage control.” 

“They’re civil adults,” he protests. 

“Oh, please.” 

“Veronica, I really do think I’m getting sick, my throat - ”

“So help me, Jughead Jones,” she cuts him off. “You will be at the party. You will arrive on time. You will _not_ wear one of those hideous paisley shirts you keep buying at vintage stores. Are you hearing me?”

“Loud and shrill,” he sighs. 

“Great,” she says, and hangs up without saying goodbye. 

 

 

The first thing that greets him at the party is Betty’s blonde hair, thrown in his face with the force of the hug she gives him. 

“Juggie,” she says brightly. He can feel her breath on his ear. “Are you wearing a tie?” 

He lets her go slowly, making sure she’s stable in her heels. “Veronica’s dress code, you know,” he says, taking her in. Her dress is a deep red, and several sections of it - a strip over the swell of her breasts, cut-outs at her hips, the entire back - are sheer. Her makeup is dark and smoky and he can see the intoxication in her eyes. “You a little drunk, Betts?” 

She shrugs, smiling wide, maybe just a bit too broadly. “It’s a party.” 

“Jughead, my man!” a voice booms, and he cringes preemptively. Half a second later Griff is by his side, patting his shoulder with more force than necessary. “Merry fuckin’ Christmas.” 

He holds in a sigh. “Happy holidays to you too, Griffin,” he says. Someone brushes by them, and Betty sways slightly in her shoes.

“Whoa,” Griffin says with a laugh, slinging an arm around her shoulders. To Jughead, he says, “Our girl’s been hitting the old-fashioneds a little hard tonight.” 

_Our girl?_ Jughead wonders. From the look on Betty’s face, he can tell she’s thinking the same thing. 

“Yeah, maybe I’ll grab our girl here a glass of water,” Jughead says, reaching for Betty’s hand. She weaves her fingers through his, a grateful gesture. 

“See you later,” she tells Griff politely, letting Jughead tug her gently through the crowd. 

He deposits her on a small leather couch, finds the bar, gets a bottle of water for Betty and a beer for himself, and then finds his way back. He’s relieved to find her in the same place her left her, one long leg crossed over the other, her high-heeled shoe dangling from her toes. 

He uncaps the water and hands her the bottle. “Are we still letting Veronica marry that asshole?” 

Betty licks a droplet of water off her bottom lip. “He loves her.” 

“Not as much as he loves himself.” 

“We’re her friends, so we’re supporting her,” she says firmly. 

“Even in her bad choices?” 

“Jug.” Betty slides him a look, and he raises his hands in surrender before tapping the side of her bottle, indicating that she should drink more. 

“You nervous?” he asks her. 

“For what?”

“You know. Seeing the ex-husband, after all these weeks.” 

She shrugs. “It’s just Archie.” Then she makes a face. “Is this dress too much?” she asks him softly. 

It tugs at his heart, the nervous way she looks, the swipe of her tongue over her front teeth like she’s checking to make sure they’re not stained with lipstick. “The dress,” he says, “is just enough.” 

In the pulsing lights of the club Veronica’s chosen for the event, Betty’s eyes glimmer in a thousand shades of blue and green. “Thanks,” she says, so quietly he doesn’t even hear her, just reads the word in the movement of her mouth. 

 

 

There is karaoke, and it’s unbearable. 

Veronica flounces up to the stage first and sings some pop song, which is fine, because she can actually sing. The giggly-drunk girls and the goofy frat bros who follow her performance cannot. 

He starts to recognize faces. Val shows up, clearly very happy to see them all. Moose and Midge arrive, and he can’t decide if he’s more surprised they’ve lasted, all these years since high school, or that they’ve actually travelled to the city from Massachusetts just for Veronica’s over-the-top Christmas party. Reggie appears, followed by his usual cloud of testoterone and bravado, and yells, “B. Coop!” with enthusiasm, hugging Betty so hard that he picks her up off her feet. 

Jughead forgets sometimes that Reggie also went to Columbia, his admission undoubtedly paid for by one of daddy’s donations, and that he and Betty are sort of friends now, connected by their alma mater and by Archie. 

“Hi, Reg,” she says, laughing and adjusting her dress once he sets her back down on the ground. 

“You look hot,” he says firmly, and then disappears to go flirt with one of Veronica’s unsuspecting friends. 

Jughead lifts an eyebrow at Betty. “Guess he likes the dress.” 

She smiles, and it’s an easy smile this time, warm and unforced. “Come with me, I want another drink,” she says, and she takes his hand again. 

 

 

Archie’s arrival isn’t too awkward. It probably _does_ help that Betty’s drunk, a little less full of tension than she might otherwise be. Archie kisses her cheek very carefully, like the wrong placement of his lips could ruin something, and Betty says, “Merry Christmas, Arch,” in her soft voice. 

And then, mercifully, Val calls, “Archie Andrews! Get over here!” 

Veronica beams at Jughead, like this is some kind of victory. 

 

 

Archie turns down request after request to sing, but Reggie eventually gets him to take two shots of Fireball, and he relents. He steps on stage, and once he’s introduced himself, the place quiets a bit - people recognize his name. 

He calls Val up on stage with him, and they sing _Baby It’s Cold Outside_ together. Jughead can’t quite help but watch Betty during the performance; she’s not far from him, standing with Veronica, the two of them leaning against each other with their arms linked. She’s holding a fresh drink, another old-fashioned with three maraschino cherries and a slice of an orange floating in it. He looks at her knuckles on the side of the glass and is pleased to note that they’re not white. 

When the duet is done, some of Veronica’s friends yell up to Archie, requesting he sing _It’s You_ , but Archie plays up his aw-shucks routine, thanks them but says, “Nah, not tonight,” and explains that he’s just trying to enjoy his friend’s Christmas party. Jughead’s gaze zeroes in on Betty’s face, but in the dim lighting, he can’t read her expression. 

 

 

Two hours later, Betty pours all the alcohol left in her glass into her mouth, chin tipping back, and announces, “I want to sing.”

Jughead exchanges a mildly alarmed look with Reggie and realizes that they’re having the exact same thought: that Betty, emboldened by alcohol and still fairly fresh off a break-up, will get up there and start singing Celine Dion or Whitney Houston or some other ballad about lost love. 

“Want a duet partner, girl?” Reggie offers gamely. “I can harmonize.” 

“No, thanks,” she says, handing Jughead her empty glass. 

He holds onto her wrist lightly. “Are you sure about - ”

She shakes him off, dismissing his concern. “I’m going to sing a song, Jug, not do a line.” 

As she walks off, Jughead glances back at Reggie and receives a shrug in return. 

“I don’t know, man,” Reggie says. “Let’s just hope whatever happens doesn’t go viral.”

 

 

It turns out Jughead’s fears are unfounded, because Betty doesn’t sing _I Will Always Love You_ or _My Heart Will Go On_. She sings a song he doesn’t know, in the voice he remembers from his dad’s trailer forever ago, the musical accompaniment to daily tasks like washing dishes or sweeping. 

Betty looks bright and beautiful. Her smile is a natural one, bordering on a grin, a touch of confidence mixed in with her shyness, and when she sings, “Ooh-ooh, I’m a rebel just for kicks now. Let me kick it like it’s 1986 now. Might be over now, but I feel it still,” it might be a trick of the light, or it might be a stupid bit of drunken, misplaced hope, but Jughead swears she winks at him. 

When she hits the bridge, and she sings, “Ooh-ooh, I’m a rebel just for kicks, yeah, your love is an abyss for my heart to eclipse now,” he can hear the distinct sound of Archie’s two-fingered whistle, and Val yells, _Yes girl!_

Jughead’s neck feels warm. Betty kind of rocks it, up there. 

 

 

In the small hours of the morning, when most of Veronica’s guests have left, stumbling tipsy and spirited into the night, Jughead remains in the club. Far to his left, Archie and Val sit on either side of a table covered in several discarded shot glasses, talking intently and bursting into laughter every now and again. Reggie’s got one of Veronica’s grade school friends (Ashley? Ainsley?) pressed against the bar, his tongue in her mouth. Griff is sitting in a leather chair, a glass of scotch in one hand, his party-bro persona dropped as he speaks into his phone seriously, talking to some business associate in China. 

Veronica slides into Jughead’s booth with a sigh. “My feet are numb,” she says, fanning herself with the chequebook she’s holding. She smiles at him, asks, “Did you have a nice time?” The look on her face is triumphant, like she knows the answer is yes. 

“I’ve been to worse holiday parties,” he says neutrally, but he smiles back at her. 

“Listen, I’ve still got a couple more bills to settle, and Griff’s probably going to be on that call for at least thirty more minutes. You mind walking her home?” she asks, her smile turning fond as she juts her chin toward Betty, who’s curled up on a leather couch with Reggie’s blazer rolled up under her head, sound asleep. 

“Sure,” Jughead says. “But you’re throwing me mixed messages here, Ronnie. A few weeks ago you were telling me to stay away from her.” 

“I was telling you not to try and take advantage of her vulnerability,” Veronica corrects, standing back up. “I trust you to be a gentleman.” 

“Thanks, I guess,” he says wryly. “I’m nothing if not chivalrous.”

“Well,” she says teasingly. “You are, after all, the third of your name, Forsythe.” His frown is automatic and deep, and it makes her laugh. “Goodnight, Jug.” 

“Goodnight,” he echoes. He watches Veronica cross the room and start talking to one of the bartenders, and then gets up, approaching Betty. 

She looks peaceful, and he finds her beautiful, despite the spot of drool on Reggie’s jacket and the flakes of mascara beneath her eyes. He leans down toward her and gives her shoulder a gentle shake, waiting until she peeks at him through her lashes before he says, “Hey. You want to head back to your own bed?” 

“Yeah,” she murmurs sleepily, sitting up. 

On instinct, he reaches out to tuck her hair behind her ear, his thumb smoothing over the imprint a wrinkle in the jacket she’d been using as a pillow has left in her skin. Betty blinks at him, her eyes hazy with sleep. She doesn’t look alarmed that he’s touching her. 

“I’m still drunk, I think,” she says, brows drawn together like she’s trying to figure her own self out. 

Because Jughead is an idiot, or a masochist, or a totally pathetic man still hung up on his high school girlfriend, he thumbs her bottom lip very lightly before he drops his hand. “Yeah,” he says. “Sounds like a fair assessment.” He holds out his hands to her, helping her up. “Ronnie basically ordered me to escort you home. Are you good to go?” 

She nods, picking up her clutch and following him to coat check to retrieve their jackets. 

The crisp night air seems to revive her a bit. Betty locates an elastic in her clutch and gathers her hair up into a somewhat messy ponytail. They walk back toward Veronica’s place at an unhurried pace; in heels, she walks carefully through the slush on the sidewalk. 

“You know something?” Betty asks, breaking the fairly comfortable silence. 

“I know _lots_ of things, Betty,” he teases. 

Her eyes lift skyward but she doesn’t indulge him, just says, “I think you had a good time tonight.”

“I had an okay time.” 

“A _good_ time,” she repeats. “I saw you. Smiling.” 

Jughead laughs. “The muscles in my mouth do move that way sometimes.” 

“You know something else?” 

“I’m betting I don’t.” 

When she looks at him, her face is so _open_ , it hits him like a punch to the gut. Betty hasn’t looked at him without something guarded glazed over her eyes in years and years. She says, “That song always reminded me of you.” 

It takes a second for his brain to catch up to her words. “The song you sang?”

“Yeah. Of you - forever ago.” Her smile is the gentlest thing, full of nostalgia. “A rebel just for kicks.” 

Jughead grimaces. “I think I preferred the word _weirdo_ for a while there.” 

“Before then,” she says. “Before all of it. When - god, when we were just kids.”

“Back when you were just little Betty Cooper, huh?” he asks. He can hear the fondness in his own voice. “You’d cry when I pulled your ponytail.” 

“Yeah, because it was a dick move.” 

He fakes a gasp. “Betty, really, language,” he teases. 

“Fuck off,” she tells him, just to make a point. There’s laughter tucked into her words. 

 

 

In the lobby of Veronica’s building, she presses the button to call the elevator and asks, “Are you coming up?”

The question surprises him, just a little, but he nods. “Yeah, I guess I better check for bogeymen under your bed.” 

She makes an adorable huffy sound. “I’ll have you know I looked up reviews for that movie online, and two of them said it was _too frightening_.” 

“You sure you didn’t write one of them?” 

“ _Stop_ ,” she says, her voice light and giggly, the word drawn out so that there’s a _ah_ sound where the _o_ should be. For the second time that evening, Jughead thinks, _holy shit, is she flirting with me?_

“Still feeling a bit of a buzz there, Betts?” he asks her as they step into the elevator. 

She looks at him, and, unbidden, one of Archie’s lyrics about her beautiful eyes pops into his head. “No,” she says, her voice very soft. 

And then she’s kissing him, her mouth so tentative against his, and he’s kissing her back without a second thought, pulling her as close to him as possible, sliding his hands under her coat and, when she gasps quietly, slipping his tongue into her mouth. 

They break apart when they’re startled by the chime of the elevator as the doors open onto Veronica’s penthouse apartment. Betty’s eyes are wide in her face, lips slightly parted, like she’s surprised by herself. 

Jughead can’t bring himself to pull his hands away from where they’ve settled on her hips, but he does manage to shake his head and say, hoarsely, “We can’t do this.” 

Betty’s forehead rests against his for just a second, and then her nose nudges his and she whispers, “It’s Christmas.”

Her words throw him years into the past, to the last day they were together before he broke her heart. He remembers how much he’d loved her then, sitting in Veronica’s kitchen in Veronica’s pyjamas, everything about her hesitant, just on the wrong side of hopeful. 

He kisses her this time, and by the time they’re two feet out of the elevator, both of their coats are on the floor. 

 

 

In Betty’s room, it all happens so quickly. She’s on her back on the bed, breathing hard and looking at him from beneath heavy lids, and in what feels like a single motion he pushes up her dress, pulls off her underwear, and puts his mouth on her. She keens, hips lifting, and it comes back to him like muscle memory, what Betty likes his tongue to do. 

Her fingers are tight in his hair, pulling so hard it hurts. “Juggie,” she breathes, thighs trembling beneath his hands, “fuck me.” 

Jughead doesn’t need to be asked twice, shedding his pants and boxers and moving inside of her, her hands on his chest, his shoulders, his biceps. 

He wants more - more of her skin against more of his, but she’s still in her dress and he’s still got his shirt on. He wants more time, wants this to last longer; he wants to linger in this moment so that the details will be clear in his memory. But it’s quick and it’s desperate, and with Betty’s heel pressed into the middle of his back, with her fingernails biting into his shoulder, with her eyelashes fluttering while her mouth falls open in a silent _yes_ , slowing down seems like an impossibility. 

He slips his hand between them to touch her, murmuring, “God, Elizabeth,” against her cheekbone, and she comes just like that, quicker than he thought she would, and with her tight around him, with her breath hot against his skin, he’s right there with her. 

For a few seconds after he collapses next to her, they lay there on her floral bedspread, looking at the ceiling. She’s breathing shakily, fingers curled around the fabric of her dress. 

Voice breathy, she says, “You have to go. Before Ronnie gets back.”

 

 

At four a.m., Jughead is still awake and still thinking of her. 

There was no talk of what it had meant. There were no promises made, no talk of an _us_. There was no kiss goodbye. There was just Betty, sitting in the middle of her bed with her wrinkled skirt arranged modestly over her lap, watching him get dressed. There was only her quiet _bye_ and her eyes shining in the city light that snuck in through the crack in her curtains. 

He contemplates texting her for a while, but he knows she’s probably asleep. He doesn’t want to make the strange thing that happened between them any stranger. But there’s a nagging thought in the back of mind, one that he only has because he’s been privy to way too many details of Betty’s life, but he supposes that if she can be brave enough to kiss him in an elevator, he can be brave enough to send her a damn text. 

With a sigh, he sits up in bed and types: _are you on the pill?_

To his surprise, Betty replies only one minute later. _I’ll get plan B tomorrow._

_isn’t that kind of expensive?_

_would you rather have a baby?_ That surprises an abrupt laugh out of him, one that almost makes him choke on his saliva. 

_I meant that I can pay for half, if you want. or all._

_it’s okay._

_you sure?_

_yeah. thx though._

Jughead hesitates for a moment, and then types, _can we talk?_

_after xmas._

He sighs, but he figures he can accept that. _ok._

His phone doesn’t buzz for a couple minutes, and then Betty says, _get some sleep, night owl._

_you too, betts,_ he replies. He sets his phone down atop the stack of books on his bedside table, flops back down on the mattress, and wonders what the hell he’s doing. 

 

 

tbc.


	4. Chapter 4

Taking advantage of the lengthy holiday break that’s a perk of working for a school, Jughead heads to California for a week to visit his mother and sister. 

The perpetual sunshine doesn’t really fit his dark-and-broody aesthetic, and it’s downright bizarre to celebrate Christmas without a single snowflake in sight, but he’d do just about anything for Jellybean, so he flies across the country without complaint. 

He’s immensely proud of his little sister, who is not only loving her classes and making new friends at UC Berkeley, but who had also said, only the day after she got in to the school, “Mom should come with me.” Jellybean’s enduring optimism when it comes to their mother has broken her heart, and Jughead’s, more than a few times, but he’ll always admire the fact that she refuses to give up. In that respect, she’s stronger than he is, sometimes. 

When she comes rushing at him at baggage claim, he almost doesn’t recognize her with her long, dark hair tied up in a complicated knot, her cut-off shorts displaying seriously tanned legs, and a floral tattoo on one shoulder, but when she says, “Juggie, you’re _here_!” and flings her arms around him, her face pressed to his chest, she feels just like home. 

 

 

Christmas is an easy day. They stay in their pyjamas, open the small number of gifts they have for one another, and gorge on a feast of Chinese food. Jellybean falls asleep during the movie they watch afterward, sprawled out over the length of the couch. 

“I can see the question in your face,” his mother says softly, gathering up empty takeout containers. “She’s doing really well. She loves it here.” 

He nods, watching her. “You seem good, too, Mom.” 

“I am, honey.” She sits down on the floor next to him, and Jughead opens his mouth to ask a question about his father, but she speaks first: “And how are you?” 

“Oh - fine. I’m good. Work, writing - all of it’s good.” 

“I heard your friends Betty and Archie split up.” 

His eyebrows lift. “You _heard_? Where could you possibly have heard?” 

Unbothered by his tone, she says, “From your sister.” 

He glances at Jellybean, who’s still sound asleep. “Well, yeah, they did, but I don’t know what this has to do - ”

“She’s the girl you lived with, right? In high school?”

Jughead slides his mother a look, flat and unimpressed. “You know she is.”

“Did you… have anything to do with it? The split?”

“What? No. Jesus, Mom. I didn’t break up anyone’s marriage.” 

His mother lays a hand on his shoulder. “Jughead, I know we don’t have the kind of relationship where we talk about these things, but… your sister is pretty convinced that Betty’s the only girl you’ve ever truly… had feelings for. And we really want you to be happy.”

It annoys him, that they’ve been talking about this, and his voice is hard when he says, “And what about Dad? Too bad we can’t ask him what he thinks, or if he wants me to be happy. I’m sure he’d have something to say, since he’s the one who left me in a situation where people were threatening to _assault my girlfriend_.” He shakes his head, shrugging his mother’s hand away. “Where the fuck _is_ he?”

Jellybean, who stirred when he raised his voice, sits up and blinks sleepily at them. “She doesn’t know, Jug,” she says softly. 

“Honey, if I knew - ”

He stands before his mother can finish her sentence, mumbles, “I need some air,” and walks toward the apartment door. 

 

 

Outside, the sun beats down on his skin. He walks for a few minutes, trying to clear his head, until he finally encounters a small outlook. It has a rail to prevent anyone from falling down the drop, and Jughead leans his elbows on it, bowing his head for a moment and taking a deep breath. When he feels a bit steadier, he fishes his phone out of his pocket and types in his passcode. 

He has a text from Veronica: _merry christmas to my favourite grinch! get lots of sun!_ There is one from Archie as well, which reads, _merry christmas, bro. my dad says hi_. His last text is from his coworker, Matthew, just a generic _merry xmas jughead_. 

Jughead texts Veronica back _no_ , followed by a cranky-looking emoji, and tell Archie, _merry christmas to you and to fred_. He’ll respond to Matthew later. 

There are no messages from Betty. He knows with certainty that she’d send out her holiday greeting early on in the day - that’s just how she is - but he’s a couple timezones behind her, and she hasn’t sent him anything. 

He screws around on his phone for a few minutes, idly looking through various forms of social media. Archie’s posted on Twitter to wish all his fans happy holidays. Veronica’s posted a picture on Instagram; in it, she’s holding a jewellery box with a sparkling diamond bracelet inside it, beaming while Griff kisses her cheek. The picture has already accumulated over one hundred likes, and Jughead keeps scrolling until he hits a post from Cheryl Blossom. 

It’s a picture of Polly’s twins, Jason and Lizzie, who look so old now that Jughead feels downright ancient at the sight of them, smiling and squished between their aunts, Cheryl and Betty. It’s a slightly disconcerting image - given how much Betty and Cheryl look like their siblings, the kids between them look as though they somehow belong, biologically, to the women sitting on either side of them. 

The twins are grinning, and both Betty and Cheryl are wearing easy, wide smiles, the two of them lit up by their niece and nephew. Cheryl is, of course, wearing red, and Betty is wearing a green sweater that makes her eyes pop in a way that’s completely unfair. The caption reads _Spinster aunts spoiling our fave babes!_. Betty is tagged in the photo, Kevin has commented _this looks like a gay family portrait_ , Veronica’s comment reads _GORGEOUS GIRLS!_ followed by six red hearts, and Archie has liked the picture. Jughead is not a liker of photos, especially not Cheryl’s, but he stares at it for a long moment before switching back to his messaging app. 

_merry christmas_ , he writes to Betty, _hope you’re having a good time with your family._

She replies about five minutes later with, _same to you. it’s great to see jj and liz. how’s cali?_

_how did you know i was here?_

_V, of course_. 

_right_ , he types. _california is good. JB is so grown up._

_makes you feel old huh?_

_like an octogenarian._

_have a good christmas, juggie,_ she writes. 

On impulse, he replies, _when are you back in the city?_

_29th._

_can i see you?_

_you’re coming to V’s NYE thing right?_

_before that._

Betty doesn’t reply. 

 

 

He gets her answer hours later, around two-thirty in the morning, and sees it when he wakes up the next day. 

_ok, the 30th. at 2,_ it says. _the bakery near V’s with the really good cinnamon buns. you know it?_

He knows it. 

 

 

Jughead is painfully, stupidly nervous about meeting Betty. He just wants to talk. Even now, he knows he’ll struggle to put the things they need to talk about into words, but he wants to talk to her anyway. That used to be such an easy thing for them - talking. 

The day is sunny, not too cold until the cruel wind picks up. He stuffs his face into the collar of his jacket as he heads for the bakery. 

Betty’s already there, her hair in a ponytail, pale purple mittens tucked beneath one arm. “I ordered you a coffee,” she says. “Do you still take it black?”

He nods, pulling off his toque. “Just like my soul.” 

She smiles slightly. “I figured you’d want a cinnamon bun too.” 

“You figured right. Should we sit?” 

She nods, and by the time they’ve wrestled out of all their winter gear, the barista arrives with two cinnamon buns, Jughead’s cup of coffee, and a latte for Betty with a heart drawn in its foam. 

“So,” Betty says, as he takes a big bite out of his bun. “You wanted to talk?” 

He chews, swallows. “Don’t you think we should?” 

“I don’t know.” She cups both hands around her mug. “What is there to talk about?” 

Jughead sets his cinnamon bun down. “Betty… Come on.” 

“I’m serious,” she says. There is a challenge glittering in her eyes, a dare. “What do we need to talk about?” 

He clears his throat. They’re the only ones in the bakery besides the barista, who is puttering around behind the counter, and he wonders if they’re about to put on a show for her, one that she’ll recount to her friends tonight. “We need to talk about… what happened.” 

“And what happened, exactly?”

Frustration boils up within him. “Don’t be like this.” 

“No, please, tell me,” she says. Her voice is quiet but her words are very clear. “You want to talk about how you fucked your best friend’s ex-wife?” 

He cringes. “Christ, Betty, that’s not - ”

“Or would you rather talk about the _real_ elephant in the room here? You want to talk about how you shoved me out of your trailer when I was trying to fight for us, and didn’t see me again for years?”

Jughead closes his eyes for a beat, and when he opens them Betty’s still _looking_ at him, so many things in her eyes. “I was trying to protect you,” he says, slow and soft. “I know you know that.” 

“That didn’t make it hurt any less.” 

“ _No_ ,” he agrees forcefully, with meaning. “It didn’t.” 

Betty’s cinnamon bun is still untouched. She sips her latte and wipes a smudge of lip gloss off the rim of the mug. With purposeful calm, she says, “There’s no point in rehashing the past.”

“And what about the present?” 

It surprises him, the way her lips quiver. “What _about_ the present, Jughead?” she breathes. “This isn’t - ” She waves a hand between them. “This isn’t happening, is it?” 

He leans forward, and he is an idiot, an _idiot_ , but he says, “Why not?” 

Her expression is incredulous. “I drank a lot that night, and you were… there.” Then, when his face must betray how that stings, she amends, “I don’t mean you were _there_ , like I was looking for a warm body and you happened to be the closest one, I mean you were… there. I knew you… I knew that with me, for me, you’d be…” 

She can’t seem to finish her sentence, and Jughead reaches toward her, laying his fingers very lightly against her forearm. 

Betty swallows and says, “It was a mistake. I was just - you were looking at me and I… ” Her eyes fill and she pulls her arm away, folding her hands in her lap. 

“I’m always looking at you, Betts,” he says soflty. 

A tear spills down one of her cheeks as she meets his gaze, and she says, “God, that’s creepy,” but in spite of her wet eyes, she’s almost laughing. 

Jughead cracks a smile of his own. “You know what I meant.” 

She wipes her cheek and visibly tries to collect herself. “That can’t happen again. And we can’t talk about it again.”

“Betty,” he sighs. 

“What?” she says. “I'm really asking - what else is there? I’m barely divorced. Some stupid magazine told me it takes half the length of a relationship to get over it, and I’m definitely not there yet. You and Archie are friends again. You and _me_ are friends again. I don’t want to do all of this all over again, the fighting and the silence and then the awkwardness. It took years.” 

He eats the rest of his cinnamon bun, buying himself time. 

“I didn’t know if we’d ever be friends again,” Betty says, sitting up a little straighter, looking a bit more eager - she wants to convince him that she’s right. “But we are, Jug. We’re friends.” 

He gulps down some coffee and tells her, gently, “We’re not friends, Betty. We pretend to be - for Archie, and for Veronica, and maybe for ourselves. But we’re not. We were two civil people who talked to each other when we had to. Until you called me from Hoboken.”

She deflates a bit. “What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying that I… care about you. I always have, even when you thought I didn’t. But it’s not… friendship, what we have. It hasn’t been in a long, long time.”

“So… what is it?” 

He pushes a hand roughly through his hair and shifts around a bit in his seat. “You kissed me,” he finally says. 

That seems to startle her, but she says, “I know.” 

“ _You_ kissed _me_. And when I said we should stop, you said - ”

She cuts him off, “I _know_.” She blows out a breath. “I’m a bit of a mess lately, if you haven’t noticed.” 

He taps his fingers against the side of his mug. “That’s not friendship. That’s all I’m saying.” 

Annoyed with him, Betty says, “Well, we’re not going to _date_. And we won’t be… repeating that night. I mean - I’m _divorced_ , and I’m killing myself trying to get ahead in my career even though nothing seems to be working, and I’m living with Veronica and _Griffin_ , and my ex-husband’s song is on _every radio station_ , and then I’m having _unprotected sex_ with my high school boyfriend who broke my heart so hard it still hurts sometimes and I’m not even on birth control because the previously mentioned ex-husband and I were trying to have a _baby_ , which is one hell of a stupid way to try and fix a marriage that’s not working for you, and sometimes I - I get that feeling of… of some kind of darkness, and - ” She shakes her head, her gaze fixed on her latte, where the heart has melted into the coffee. “And then you walked into that damn bar in _New Jersey_ and I’m - I’m making mistakes.” 

Jughead knows mistakes, and that night, what happened between them, it hadn’t felt like one. But Betty’s halfway into a meltdown, and he doesn’t want to push her further. “Alright,” he says simply, despite the weighted feeling in his chest. 

She can tell, because she knows him well enough, that he’s placating her, and she makes a short, annoyed noise in her throat. “What do you want, then?” she demands. “What do you _want_ from me?” 

When Betty looks at him like that, her eyes that darkened shade of green, he is seventeen years old again, and she’s standing in his dad’s old trailer, crying and pleading but full of a fire, her eyes sparking with it, her cheeks pink with it, and that fire is for him, for how determinedly she loves him, for how much she wants to save him, and he is looking back at her, trying and trying and trying but failing to extricate his heart from her hands. 

“I want,” that boy inside of him says, crying with his knees on the carpet once she’s gone, “to marry you.” 

Betty physically jerks back in her chair, just a little, her mouth falling open and her eyes absurdly wide as she stares at him, and he looks right back at her, unsure of what he’s doing, unsure of what she’ll do. 

What she does is this: she shakes her head, her hands hovering in the air for a moment like she has no idea what to do with them, and then her chair scrapes back on the floor and she’s on her feet, brushing past him and toward the door with her coat in one hand and her matching set of purple gloves-hat-scarf in the other. 

Jughead puts his elbows onto the table and presses his face into his hands, heaving a very heavy sigh. 

 

 

The next night, he has to shrug on a blazer - he forgoes the tie this time - to attend yet another one of Veronica’s parties. 

This time the party is at her apartment, though most of the faces Jughead sees when he walks in are ones he recognizes from the Christmas party. The penthouse is elaborately decorated and cater-waiters roam about with trays covered in glasses of champagne. Last year, he’d spent the bulk of Veronica’s New Year’s party hovering near the long table covered in huge bowls of various kinds of flavoured popcorn, and he’d managed to slip away shortly after midnight. He hadn’t exactly wanted to attend last year, but at least he didn’t have what feels like a hard mass of dread in the pit of his stomach. 

He sees Archie first, and his friend is just the right amount of drunk to be particularly affectionate, wrapping an arm warmly around Jughead’s shoulders and hitting him with an, “I love you, man.” 

Betty’s words loud and clear in his head ( _You want to talk about how you fucked your best friend’s ex-wife?_ ), Jughead winces as he pats Archie on the back. “I love you, too.” 

“ _Aw_ ,” a familiar voice says, and its sharpness could be teasing if it didn’t sound so dangerous. “Are you boys going to kiss?” 

“Cheryl!” Archie exclaims; Jughead has a feeling he’d be delighted to see anyone right about now. 

A softer voice somewhere to their right says, “Cheryl.” 

They all turn to see Veronica, looking as if she’s frozen to the spot. “You’re here,” she adds at the same quiet volume. 

Cheryl smirks. “I was invited, wasn’t I?”

“Of course you were,” Archie says, as though it’s his party. He gives Cheryl a hug and says, “You smell great.”

There’s a flicker of amusement in her eyes. “Thank you, Archibald.” She removes the arm he’s still got around her with surprising gentleness and turns to Veronica. “Well, V, aren’t you going to hug your long-lost friend?” 

Veronica smiles quickly and moves toward Cheryl as she says, “Of course.”

Their hug is a quick one, interrupted by Betty’s exclamation of, “Cheryl! You came!” 

And then all of sudden Betty’s there, striding past Jughead like he’s invisible and giving Cheryl a hug of her own. 

“Well, you were so _annoyingly_ insistent,” Cheryl laughs. 

Jughead tries not to stare at Betty. Her dress is black and glittery and dips farther in the front than anything he’s ever seen her wear before. He’s miserably aware that Archie is also playing the try-not-to-ogle-Betty game, and also not exactly scoring any points. 

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Betty says, hooking her arm through Cheryl’s and guiding her away. “Let’s get you a drink.” 

“Finally, a proper hostess,” Cheryl says, tossing her hair and glancing at Veronica over her shoulder. 

Jughead looks over at Veronica, too, and she looks back at him, her eyes particularly dark. Archie props his forearm on Jughead’s shoulder and says, happily, “This is like a real reunion.” 

“You’re drunk,” Veronica tells him, and there’s a certain ferocity in those words that makes Archie’s eyes go wide and sad. 

“Okay,” Jughead says. He takes Archie’s arm off his shoulder. “Why don’t you go grab a snack, bro?” he suggests, nudging Archie toward the table covered in various finger foods before he steps over to Veronica, planting both hands on her shoulders and steering her toward one of her many cater-waiters. “Champagne for my real friends.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of Betty, blonde hair a striking contrast against her black dress. She’s standing with Cheryl and Reggie’s joined them now - he’s talking, saying something that has Cheryl rolling her eyes and Betty laughing, touching a hand to his bicep flirtatiously, and Reggie gets this look on his face that’s both thrilled and alarmed. 

“I asked everyone to RSVP,” Veronica says, sounding like she might cry. 

“I know,” Jughead says in what he hopes is a soothing voice. Betty’s looking at him now, or really, looking at Veronica, the edges of her eyes crinkled in confusion, and when her gaze finally settles on Jughead, he gives her a nod to let her know that it’s okay, that he’s handling this. 

Betty’s face tenses, like she’s clenching her jaw, and her arms cross over her chest, but a moment later she pulls up a new pretty smile, turning back to Reggie and Cheryl and resuming the cold-shoulder treatment she’s clearly decided to give him. 

He finally locates a waiter and presses a flute of champagne into Veronica’s hand, and when she throws its contents down her throat like it’s a shot of tequila, he knows it’s going to be a very long night. 

 

 

tbc.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song I've stolen for Archie this chapter: "It's Time" by Imagine Dragons.

Jughead spends nearly half an hour perched on the edge of the clawfoot tub in the ornate en suite bathroom attached to the master, watching Veronica pace back and forth, sucking in short, shallow breaths and pressing folded tissues beneath her eyes as she tries to prevent her tears from ruining her makeup. 

“I can’t believe she would just show up like that. I would _never_ do that to her.”

“It seems like Betty encouraged her to come,” he says. “Ronnie… why don’t you tell Betty about this? She’d probably be more help than I am.” 

Veronica fans a hand in front of her eyes. “She’s had so much going on lately, I didn’t want to burden her with something else. And she’s… Betty. She has morals. I didn’t want her to… judge me, or anything.”

“Betty loves you more than any of your moral failings,” he says firmly. He may not be certain about much, but he’s certain about that. 

She looks at herself in the mirror; her eyes are full of misery. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get through the rest of the night.” 

He rests his elbows on his knees. “You probably don’t want to hear this, but… it couldn’t last forever, the way it was. You couldn’t keep compartmentalizing - Cheryl in Montreal, Griff here. It all has to come to a head. And it’ll suck, but you can handle it.”

Veronica shakes her head slightly. “God, it’s just so _Cheryl_ to do this. To just show up, out of the blue, without a word of warning. She always has to have the upper hand.” 

“What… is it, between you two, Ronnie?” he asks, soft and cautious - he’s never posed this question to her before. “It’s more than some sort of fling.” 

“Yes,” she agrees quietly. 

“Do you love her?” 

Veronica sniffles and grabs another tissue. “I don’t know,” she whispers. 

Jughead gets up and moves toward her. “Hug?” he offers, and she steps into his open arms, sniffling noisily and breathing unevenly. “It’s going to be okay, Veronica.” 

“Maybe,” she says on a heavy sigh, and Jughead doesn’t disagree - he’s exhausted his supply of optimism. 

 

 

He spends the rest of the night shadowing Veronica as subtly as he can. She’s drinking quite a bit, but she can handle her alcohol, and he doesn’t think she’ll make a scene - yet, all the same, Veronica and Cheryl in the same enclosed space makes for a potentially volatile situation. Since he’s the only one who knows what’s going on, he’s the only one who can attempt to diffuse a blow-out fight before it happens, so he dutifully takes on the role of Veronica Lodge’s keeper for the night. 

In between casually glancing at Veronica every fifteen minutes, Jughead spends some time with Archie talking about his latest songwriting breakthroughs and their respective holiday breaks, and chatting with one of Griff’s coworkers who has, surprisingly, both read and enjoyed his book. He spots Veronica chatting with Betty once - Betty looks worried, but Veronica’s smile never cracks - and later he sees her talking to Cheryl, but they’re not quite looking at each other and the conversation seems quiet and civil. 

As the guests drunkenly begin to yell out the countdown, he finds Veronica in the crowd again, watching as she throws her arms around her fiancé’s neck and kisses him long and hard. Cheryl takes Archie’s face between her hands and plants a kiss on his mouth that leaves his lips the same colour as hers, and Jughead spots Betty’s sunshine-yellow hair just in time to watch Reggie lean in - she offers him her cheek and giggles shyly afterward. 

He’s more than ready to leave, but he knows he’s going to have to see this party through to its end. 

 

 

Ultimately, he’s the very last one there besides the hostess. Betty disappears into her bedroom once most of the guests are gone, and Jughead is left alone to watch the stragglers leave and to be the uncomfortable witness to drunken Griff, who kisses Veronica and grabs her ass when he asks her to come to bed. She shoos him on without her, promising to be there soon. 

The last thing he remembers from the night is saying, “Hey, you made it through,” while Veronica banged around the kitchen, conducting a violent cleaning session, and then all of a sudden he’s waking up on the couch with a very dry mouth and Veronica is announcing, in a remarkably chipper voice, that they’re leaving for New Year’s brunch in thirty minutes. 

He wrenches his eyes open and sits up, blinking heavily. When he glances into the kitchen, he sees Betty standing at the counter in a silky bathrobe, her hair damp, drinking a cup of coffee. 

Veronica’s voice pulls his attention back to her. She’s still standing over him, wearing a blouse and a pair of skinny black pants with perfect creases ironed into them, looking not at all hungover. “Cheryl will be joining us,” she says in the same chipper tone. “Isn’t that nice? You can shower in the guest bath.” 

“Thanks,” he mumbles as she walks away. He puts his feet on the floor and rubs at his hair. He looks back at Betty, who is studiously flipping through a magazine, and thinks that he’s dreading this brunch about as much as Veronica is. 

 

 

When they get to the busy restaurant, Jughead learns that Veronica only has a reservation for three, but she sweet-talks the waitstaff fairly easily into allowing the five of them to squish around one table. 

“I’m so sorry to have thrown off your plans, V,” Cheryl says as she sits down, not sounding sorry at all. 

“Oh, it’s nothing I can’t fix,” Veronica says, complete with an icy smile. 

Jughead is somewhat surprised that Griff doesn’t notice anything strange is going on, but then again, Griff is Griff. Betty’s obliviousness he understands - they’ve ended up seated next to one another, crammed in a corner, and she’s busy trying to shift her chair away so that their thighs don’t touch. He glances at her face, but she won’t meet his eyes. 

“So, Cheryl,” Griff says. “We didn’t really get a chance to talk last night. How’s Montreal?” He pronounces the word with a try-hard French accent that makes Jughead cringe. 

“Oh, just _magnifique_ ,” Cheryl purrs. “I absolutely love it there. I only wish I was closer to my niece and nephew.” 

That makes Betty smile. “They’d be ridiculously spoiled if you were.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Cheryl says. “Is there, Veronica? It seems like your man here certainly likes to spoil you.” 

Veronica glances up from her menu with what Jughead mentally refers to as her mean-girl face on: a perfect smile and daggers in her eyes. Griffin, who is practically puffing his chest, slides an arm around her shoulders. “She deserves every bit of it,” he says, grinning. 

“Of course,” Cheryl says, resting her chin in her hand and tapping her fingers against her cheek, her eyes focused on Veronica’s face. 

Jughead clears his throat. “So, uh, what’s good here?” 

Veronica looks at him, losing the daggers in her eyes. “The eggs benedict.” 

Cheryl turns to him too and says, “Jughead,” like she’d forgotten about him until that moment. “How _are_ you these days?”

“I’m fine, Cheryl,” he says, returning his attention to the menu. 

“Oh, you must be better than _fine_ ,” she says, her eyes wide and guileless. “I mean, you must be _thrilled_ that your long career as a third wheel to Archie and Betty has finally come to an end.” 

He hears Betty’s sharp intake of breath. She puts her menu down and says, voice steely, “Leave him alone.” 

Cheryl’s eyebrows creep up her forehead. “I didn’t mean to offend, Betty, I was just - ”

“Well don’t _just_ ,” Betty says. 

“It’s not exactly polite to bring up someone’s divorce at the breakfast table,” Veronica says, glaring at Cheryl. 

“Talk about my divorce all you want,” Betty says before Cheryl can reply. “But Jughead’s not a part of it, so leave him _out_ of it.” 

Veronica’s expression shifts again, and this time there’s a light in her eyes that scares Jughead more than the daggers did. “B?” she asks, her voice gentle but inquisitive. 

Betty lifts her chin and gives Veronica such a warm, easy smile that Jughead’s brain automatically thinks, _god, she’s beautiful_. “We should all decide what we want,” she says, in her sweet Betty voice, “so that we’ll be ready when the waiter comes back.”

 

 

Jughead is extremely relieved to finally return to his own home and his own bed. He takes a long shower and a serious nap before sitting down in the kitchen, opening his laptop, and looking at the document that’s supposed to contain his next novel. 

He cracks his knuckles and begins to type. 

_It was a bright, sunny day when she knocked on his door. Her eyes were at odds with the weather._

_She said, “I left him,” and his mind filled in her unsaid words: for you._

He stares at those sentences for a moment and then grimaces, highlights all of it, and presses _delete_. Does he write fucking _romance_ novels now?

He decides he needs a cigarette. 

 

 

Cheryl stays in the city for three days - the longer she’s around, the more irritable Veronica gets. 

The first day, Veronica sends him up-to-the-minute annoyed texts and posts a passive-aggressive caption on the Facebook photos from her party, thanking all her _lovely guests who RSVPed._ On the second day, Jughead hears nothing from Veronica all day but sees two new posts from Cheryl on Instagram - in one, Veronica has her back to the camera, walking through Bendel’s with shopping bags hooked into the crook of her arm; the other post is another picture of Veronica, this time eating gelato and looking out a large window into the busy street. It might be Cheryl’s choice of artsy filters, or it might be Jughead’s knowledge of what’s going on between them, but both photos strike him as sad. 

Veronica calls him in tears that night, though she’s trying very hard to disguise the fact that she’s crying. He can hardly keep up with all of her seething complaints about how Cheryl is pretending, _just totally pretending that we’re friends and there’s nothing weird about this visit_ , her words choked with sadness beneath her anger. 

Cautiously, Jughead recommends, once again, that she tell Betty what’s going on, and Veronica says, “I think she might have other things on her mind right now.” 

That shuts him up immediately, and he winces, thinking she might turn her wrath on him, but half a second later she’s back on the topic of Cheryl Blossom, and Jughead spends the rest of the phone call listening and offering only sympathy, no suggestions. 

 

 

The next week, Archie comes over for a writing session. Unlike Jughead, he’s actually making progress - Jughead suspects this will be a writing session for Archie and a frustration session for him. He’s briefly tempted to cancel, but he wants to maintain the friendship he’s re-built with Archie, even with - _especially_ with - whatever it is that's going on with Betty. 

Archie plays Jughead the latest song he’s working on: “So this is what you meant, when you said that you were spent… and now it’s time to build from the bottom of the pit right to the top.” 

Jughead nods along supportively as Archie sings, “I don’t ever wanna let you down, I don’t ever wanna leave this town… ” He’s a bit wary about what the song might potentially mean, but he does like the beat that Archie’s tapping out on his guitar in addition to the chords he’s strumming. 

The bridge is a little sadder, a little more desolate: “This road never looked so lonely. This house doesn’t burn down slowly. To ashes, to ashes… ”

Jughead suppresses a sigh, growing more and more convinced that this is one of those positive-outlook-after-a-breakup songs. He gives Archie a quick round of applause. “It’s sounding great, man,” he says, and he means it. “Are you… doing okay?”

“Yeah, are you kidding?” Archie asks. “This is really coming together. I think it actually might be my new single.”

“Sure,” Jughead agrees. “It sounds really good. I mean about - other stuff, though. Besides music.” 

Archie nods slowly. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m doing okay.”

Jughead gives his friend a smile that’s just a touch wry. At least _someone_ can write out their emotions productively. 

 

 

A few days later, he’s in the middle of yet another failed attempt to write, getting progressively more annoyed with himself, when there’s a knock on his door. He frowns over at the clock on the stove - it’s after eight, which isn’t exactly late, but he’s not expecting anyone. 

To say that he’s stunned when he opens the door to his loft and finds Betty on the other side would be an understatement, but his shock is almost immediately overpowered by a strong sense of relief. 

“Betts,” he sighs. “I’m glad you’re here; I’ve wanted to - ”

She interrupts him with her hands on his face and her mouth on his. She kisses him like a demand, and Jughead’s never been able to do anything with Betty but acquiesce. He opens his mouth against hers, their tongues sliding together, and Betty’s hands slide off his jaw, over his neck, and onto his upper back, pulling his body as close as possible to hers. 

He’s been longing to talk to her, but clearly _this_ is what they’re doing instead, and this is far better than Betty ignoring him, so after less than a moment of consideration, Jughead thinks _fuck it_.

The door of his apartment is still open. He reaches a hand behind her to swing it closed, and then walks her back quickly under she’s pressed against it; when her body hits the door, she gasps into his mouth. 

He shoves her winter coat off her shoulders and puts his mouth on her neck, scraping his teeth over her skin. He slips one hand beneath her sweater, holding her hip tightly, and settles the other overtop of her sweater on her breast, squeezing. She makes a soft, breathy sound, one of her legs curling up around his hips. 

Jughead lifts his head to look into her face, her red mouth and her pretty, hazy eyes. He pushes his hips against hers and her mouth falls open, head pressing back against the door a little more. “Is this what you want?” he asks her softly. 

Betty’s hands are busy undoing his belt buckle before she even breathes, “Yes.” 

He returns the favour, unbuttoning and unzipping her jeans and pushing them down her hips. She uses her toes to push the skinny legs down off of her calves, and they both kick their pants aside. 

When their lips meet again, Betty’s leg curls up around his hips once more, and Jughead hooks a hand around her other thigh, lifting her up and sandwiching her between his body and the door. Pressed so close, he can feel how warm and wet she is, and with her ankles linked at his back, he slides his hands to her ass and carries her to his bed. 

Once he’s set her down, he pulls off his shirt hurriedly, and Betty strips off both her sweater and her t-shirt in one smooth movement. Jughead doesn’t know what they’re doing, doesn’t have any idea if they’ll do it again, but he knows, no matter what, that he wants her naked this time. He drags her bra straps down her arms, leaving rough kisses against her shoulders, and then reaches behind her to unhook it. 

He leans her down onto the mattress, settling his body over hers, and with surprising dexterity, she hooks her toes into the waistband of his boxers and slides them down his legs. Once he’s kicked his underwear off an ankle, he moves back in between her legs, groaning when she grinds against him. He thumbs slip under the sides of her panties, and she lifts her hips to help him get them off. 

Betty nudges his body with hers, gets him flat on his back and straddles his lap, sinking onto him without warning, an action that tears a groan from his throat. 

“Juggie,” she murmurs, all fluttering lashes and slow, rolling hips, and Jughead sits up underneath her, catching her lips in a kiss as he wraps his arms around her, revelling in all her bare, smooth skin. Moments later he drops his mouth to her breasts, pressing kisses over her skin before he catches a nipple between his teeth. Betty’s hand sinks into his hair and grips it tightly; a needy, high-pitched sound slips out of her mouth as her back arches. Her hips move at a pace that builds and builds until they both fall over the edge. 

When he lifts his forehead from her sweaty skin, she’s still trembling through the aftershocks of her orgasm and her eyes are full of tears. 

“How could you,” she whispers, her fingertips pressing against his chest, leaving white indentations of pressure. “How could you say that to me?” 

Jughead sighs and pulls her close to him again, his fingers in her hair, his hand cupping the back of her head. She tucks her face against his shoulder and he feels her tears splash against his skin. His mind is full of a post-sex fog, he’s still _inside_ her, but for a moment he just holds her, her body warm and her skin sticky against his. 

“Listen,” he says softly, his mouth by her ear. He weaves his fingers gently through her hair. “I don’t have a roommate. You can stay. You should stay.” 

He can feel the brush of her lips against his neck, the feather-light touch of her eyelashes. She’s curled against him like he’s somewhere safe, and for a minute all he wants is to cocoon the two of them in blankets and just go to sleep. 

Betty sighs, her breath the softest breeze against his skin. “Okay,” she says. 

 

 

tbc.


	6. Chapter 6

Betty sits at his kitchen table, one knee pulled up to her chest, foot flat against the chair. She’s wearing her t-shirt again (with no bra underneath, as the slip of its v-neck when she moves keeps reminding him) and a pair of his boxers. Her hair is messy, and now that Jughead has the opportunity to look at her face leisurely, rather than in a desperate rush, he notes that she’s not wearing any makeup, that there are slight dark circles beneath her eyes. 

He sets a tall glass of water in front of her and sits down in the chair across from hers. Betty takes a drink, sets the glass down, and looks at him apprehensively. 

“I’m sorry I… ambushed you like that,” she says. 

“It wasn’t bad, as surprises go.” He rests his elbows on the table. “It feels like it’s my turn to apologize to you. But I don’t think I can.” He meets her gaze, looking into those green eyes of hers that always hold so many things. “I meant what I said.” 

“Jug,” she breathes, shaking her head a bit and looking away from him. 

“I tried to stop loving you. And maybe I succeeded, I - I honestly don’t know. But there will always be a part of me that wants that. That wants you.” 

“It was first love,” she says softly. “It - it felt huge. We went through so much together. It makes sense to… carry some of that with you.”

“It’s all I carry, Betts,” he says simply. Sitting here with her, the world dark outside the windows, honesty feels like the only option. 

“That can’t be true,” she says. “What about the girl you brought to the wedding? What about that girl Archie was sure you were dating… Emma? Emilia?” 

Jughead shrugs. “Those weren’t serious things.” 

“Juggie,” she murmurs. “I… ” She trails off before she even really begins a sentence, staring at her glass of water intently. “I have a lot of guilt,” she finally manages to say. “It’s still something I’m working through. In therapy.” 

“Guilt?” he echoes. 

“After we broke up, I don’t think I… felt anything, for a while. I was just trying to get through things. But once I moved to New Haven, it was like - like all of a sudden, something in me just _opened_ , and everything I should have felt back in Riverdale was just… there, I felt all of it. And I was so mad.” She sighs. “I’d been angry with you, but all of a sudden I was so mad at myself.” When she looks at him, she has an apology in her eyes. “I pushed you there. Fuck, Jughead, you were _sixteen_ years old, and all of a sudden you were _responsible_ for me.” 

“That’s not what it was.” 

“It is,” she says firmly. “I needed to live with you. I needed electricity. I needed a car; I needed you to drive me to work. You had a foster family, a _good_ one, and I… took that from you.” 

“You didn’t take anything from me,” he says, frowning. “You - Betty, you chose me. Despite how much you knew you’d have to struggle. You were the only person who’d ever done that.” 

Abruptly, there are tears in her eyes, and a split second later, they’re on her cheeks. “God, that’s the thing. Don’t you see it? That’s what we both thought. We thought: wow, this is how much we love each other. We thought that was the important thing.” She wipes her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt. “But it wasn’t. The important thing was that were we just kids, and we were desperate. And that’s why you ended up where you did.” 

“That wasn’t… _your_ fault, though, it - ”

“Juggie.” She drops her lifted foot to the floor. “Yes, it was. You warned me. You told me we could regret it if we took help from the Serpents. And we did.” She swallows. “You could have had such a good life, with that family.”

“But without you,” he points out. 

“I pushed you to the Serpents,” she says. “I pushed you into your choices. And that gang in Greendale wouldn’t have had the kind of leverage they had over you if not for me.”

Jughead sighs, leaning back and scrubbing at his face. “You didn’t push me into anything.”

“Not on purpose,” she agrees softly, her voice tight with tears. “But… because you loved me. I pushed you to them, and when it got to be too much… you pushed me away. I - I was so angry, so _hurt_ , but I shouldn’t have blamed you as much as I did. You tried to protect me from that, too. From realizing just how much of a part I played in all of it.” 

“You can’t trace every bad decision I ever made back to your choice to leave home, Betts,” he says, just as softly. “You know that, right?” 

“Something terrible could have happened to you. If your foster parents had never realized what was going on, if you’d never gotten out of Riverdale - god, Jughead, you could’ve been hurt. Or, at the very least, your life would have turned out so differently. I probably never would have seen you again.” 

He reaches across the table. “Betty.” She sniffles, looking at him with eyes so sad it hurts. Slowly, she puts her hands in his, and he skims his thumbs over the old, faded scars that litter her palms. “Every stupid decision I’ve made in my miserable life is not your fault.”

“I pushed you,” she insists, tears hovering above her lashes, ready to fall. 

“And I pushed _you_. Okay? Would it make you feel better if we agreed that we both made some shitty decisions when we were confused teenagers?” 

The corners of her lips turn upward, and she takes a shaky breath. “Maybe.” 

“I regret what I did,” he says, still holding her hands. “And I also don’t. I wouldn’t have been able to bear it if something happened to you.” 

“I wouldn’t have been able to stand it if something happened to _you_.” 

“Well,” he says, to make her smile, “aren’t we adorable.” 

It works; she lets out a short, breathless laugh. In spite of that, though, she says, “It’s not funny.” 

“We’ve got to let it be, Betts. Otherwise it’s just tragic.” 

Her fingers curl around his. “I’m sorry,” she says, the weight of the world in those two simple words. 

An ache grows and fades in his throat. “Oh, baby,” he says quietly. She does this to him over and over again, turns him into a version of himself that he thought was gone ten years ago. “Me too.” 

She takes a shuddering breath, and Jughead stands, using their joined hands to tug her to her feet, and pulls her into a hug. Betty’s hands press against his back, holding him close to her. They stay that way for a few minutes, holding each other, the patterns of their breathing syncing up. 

Jughead, feeling daring, slips his thumbs under the hem of Betty’s shirt, and then slides both hands beneath it, against her skin. He sweeps his hands upward until his palms rest against her ribcage, his thumbs brushing the bottoms of her breasts. 

She lifts her head. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she says, and he understands - what happens between them now is not any kind of covenant. Nonetheless, he kisses her, hot and languid, and when a soft whimper slips out of her mouth and into his, he lifts her up onto the counter and fits his body between her legs. 

 

 

Jughead wakes to the sound of loud, insistent knocking on his door. He pulls a pillow over his head in an attempt to muffle it. 

“ _Why_ ,” Betty grumbles sleepily from the other side of the bed, where she’s stretched out on her stomach, her own face pressed into a pillow. 

“Shh,” Jughead murmurs, reaching over and skimming a hand down her back. He has no intention of getting up. He’s seriously considering calling off work today, and he’s hoping he can convince her to do the same. 

“ _Jughead!_ ” 

He and Betty both scramble upright, trying to untangle themselves from the sheets. Even though he’s feeling vaguely panicked, he notices that she’s got a fresh, extremely obvious hickey on her collarbone, halfway between red and bruising. 

“What is Veronica doing here?” she breathes, staring at him with wide eyes as the knocking commences again. 

“I have no idea,” he says honestly, grabbing a pair of jeans from his hamper and pulling them on over his boxers. 

“Can you get her to leave?” Betty asks. 

“Jughead,” Veronica says again, and her voice is still loud, still annoyed, but there’s something else in it now: the choked sound of sadness. “I need to talk to you!” she calls. 

Betty’s expression of drowsy alarm shifts to one of worry mixed with confusion. “Is she crying?” 

Jughead shakes his head to indicate that he doesn’t know, yanking on a shirt and making his way over to the door. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “Ronnie, it’s… really early.” 

“I know that,” she says sharply, but the sadness in her words outweighs her anger. “Cheryl sent me this e-mail and I… ” She trails off, and there’s the answer to Betty’s question: Veronica’s crying. 

“Fuck,” he says very softly. He turns around to look at Betty - she’s standing next to his bed now, looking every bit like a woman who had sex last night, but in his bachelor-style loft apartment, there’s not really anywhere for her to hide. He shrugs at her, helpless, and she looks back at him with her nose scrunched in confusion and mouths, _Cheryl?_

“Are you going to let me in?” Veronica demands. 

Betty sighs, tugging her hair back into a ponytail and then releasing it when she realizes she has nothing to hold it in place with. “She’s upset. You have to let her in.”

Jughead nods, and with a sigh of his own, opens the door slightly, poking his head out. “Hey, Ronnie,” he says, feeling sad for her as he takes in her smudged eyeliner. 

“Hi,” she says. She swallows hard and then asks, “What are you doing?” 

“I, uh…” He looks at the floor. “I have a guest.” 

“You have a _girl_ in there?” she asks, sounding almost insultingly shocked. 

With yet another sigh, this one heavy and resigned, he lifts his gaze to hers and meets the dark eyes beneath her raised eyebrows. 

Her mouth falls open. “You are _kidding_ me,” she says, and smacks a hand against the door, throwing it open all the way to reveal Betty, still standing nervously by his bed. 

There’s a beat of complete silence, and then Veronica starts talking rapidly in the Spanish-Portuguese hybrid she and her parents spoke when she was growing up, and while Jughead is too tired to try to translate using his rough high-school Spanish skills, he’s very much aware that the sentiment is caught somewhere between _are you fucking kidding me, you two?_ and _I fucking knew it_. 

When Veronica’s ended her brief, incredulous rant, Betty says, softly: “V.”

Veronica blows out a breath. “Betty, _what_ are you doing?” She whirls on Jughead and repeats the question, “What are _you_ doing?”

He holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender, taking a couple steps back and glancing over at Betty. 

“Well?” Veronica asks, tapping her foot on the floor impatiently. “Are you two _together_ now?” 

Betty bites her lip, and Jughead looks back at Veronica. “No,” he says. 

“But you’re sleeping together.” 

This time, Betty answers before he can: “Yes.” She and Veronica seem to have a silent conversation, their eyes locked; Betty’s expression anxious, Veronica’s imploring. “I came here, V,” Betty finally says. “It was my idea.” 

“Betty,” Veronica sighs. “Isn’t this a _terrible_ idea, regardless of who started it?” 

“Maybe,” Betty says easily, approaching them. “Ronnie - you were upset when you got here. You said Cheryl sent you an email or something?” 

Veronica’s lips press tight together, her eyes sliding over to Jughead, and he gives her what he’s sure is the world’s most obvious meaningful glance. 

Betty looks back and forth between them. “What? What’s happening?” 

Veronica draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You’re not the only one thinking with your ovaries,” she says dryly, and she drops down into one of Jughead’s kitchen chairs. 

 

 

He attempts to make breakfast, throwing together omelettes and toasting bread, while Betty and Veronica sit at his kitchen table and talk. 

Veronica explains everything that’s happened with Cheryl in a hesitant voice that’s not entirely like her, and Betty listens with that earnest, intent expression she gets sometimes. 

When Veronica’s done, Betty inches her chair over, getting closer. “I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks softly. 

“For a lot of reasons,” Veronica says tiredly. “I’m engaged to Griff, and you were married. And then… you were getting a divorce. And you’re… sort of weirdly related to Cheryl.”

“V, you can tell me anything, any time,” Betty says firmly. 

“I told her you’d say that,” Jughead interjects, and he feels the heat of Veronica’s glare on his back. 

“So… Cheryl gave you an ultimatum,” Betty says. 

“Yeah.” Veronica sighs. “In an _e-mail_ , of all things. Break it off with Griff or we’re done.” She’s quiet for a beat and then adds, “I’ve seen enough TV movies to know that there shouldn’t be ultimatums in healthy relationships.” 

With impossible gentleness, Betty says, “Healthy relationships shouldn’t be secrets, either.”

Veronica scoffs. “Like _you’re_ one to talk?” 

Jughead glances over his shoulder. “Ronnie.” 

“I’m sorry,” she says, “but no one in this room is occupying the moral high ground.” 

“No one’s claiming they are,” Betty says as Jughead transfers the eggs from the frying pan to three plates. “V, I want you to be happy, that’s all. Jug does too.” 

Veronica sighs, deflating a bit. “I don’t think I know how to get there.” 

“Would you be okay, ending things with Cheryl?”

Jughead sets the plates on the table, and Veronica says, her heart in her voice, “No.” 

“Maybe that’s your answer.”

“Griff and I have a _wedding date_ , Betty,” Veronica says with a hint of hysteria. 

“You can cancel a wedding,” Betty says steadily. “You can cancel a _marriage_ , but from my own experience, I think the first option is probably preferable.” 

“Griffin’s a good guy,” Veronica says quietly, looking at her plate. “I know you two aren’t his biggest fans, but he is. He’s good to me and we have fun together. He loves me.” 

“Betty isn’t saying you shouldn’t marry him,” Jughead says, leaning back against the counter and biting into a piece of toast. “If that’s what you want, then you should.” 

“If I break up with Griff, it’s - there isn’t a guarantee that things will work out with Cheryl. You know her. She’s impossible. What if I end things with Griff, and then Cheryl ends things with me, and I end up with nothing?” 

Betty puts a hand on Veronica’s knee. “I think sometimes you just have to try,” she says. 

Jughead watches as they look at each other for a moment, having one of their wordless exchanges, and then Veronica quirks an eyebrow in Jughead’s direction and asks Betty, “Is that what you’re doing? Trying?” 

Betty looks at him, and he can’t help the way the corners of his mouth twitch upward - he can’t _not_ smile when she’s looking at him like that, all tousled and recently debauched, something sweet and shiny mixed with the resolve he can see in her eyes. 

“Yeah,” she says after a brief pause, “I guess I am.”

 

 

Betty and Veronica leave together, headed back to the Upper West Side, and Jughead gets ready for work. His day is painfully normal until around ten that night, when his phone buzzes with a text from Betty. 

_craving fro yo. you down?_

Jughead’s already changed into sweatpants, and outside he can hear the howling of an angry winter wind, but he immediately imagines Betty’s lips closing around a colourful plastic spoon, Betty’s eyes full of late-night silliness, Betty’s mouth tasting like strawberries and cream. 

_always down for food,_ he types, and means, _always down for you._

 

 

He and Betty slip into a fairly easy friendship with a healthy dose of sex thrown in. He lets her set both the pace and the rules. 

Most of the time, they see each other at night rather than during the day, and now that they’re talking again, the conversation never seems to end. They fill each other in on all the gaps in their respective histories, on all the bits of their lives at present that they’ve never discussed before. 

On a weekday evening they sit on Jughead’s couch eating Chicago mix popcorn and watching _Walk the Line_ , and when Betty cries he asks, “You ever think about what your love of this movie says about you, psychologically? If you think about men with guitars - ” and she throws popcorn in his face and he tickles her ribs and Betty undoes his jeans, slips a hand into his boxers, and with the movie still playing moves her hand at a torturously slow pace and uses his question as an opportunity to discuss how she’s been seeing a therapist, how it’s taught her so much about herself, how he should maybe give it a try, and Jughead keeps his eyes glued to her face in a desperate attempt to concentrate on this very important topic of conversation, and when Betty leans closer to him, brushes a teasingly light kiss against his mouth, and asks, “Don’t you think that’s a good idea?” his answer his “Yes, _god_ , yes.” 

After an awkward dinner with Veronica and Griff before they head off to a charity gala, he and Betty are alone in the penthouse apartment, alone in her bedroom with the floral bedspread, and he tells her all about his job while he takes off her shirt and unclasps her bra and puts his mouth on her bare breasts, asks her questions about her job in between kissing and licking and biting and sucking, and when Betty’s answers fade off into needy whines he strokes his tongue over her pebbled skin and says, “I’m trying to talk to you here, Elizabeth,” and her hands scramble, her body writhes, her eyes closed tight as she tries to listen to him and tries to reply, and to his surprise he takes her right to the edge just like that, and all he has to do is press his hips between hers, give her just a bit of friction, and Betty comes for him while his lips trace out a question on her skin: “So you like the long-form stuff better, huh?” 

“We’re just _talking_ , V,” he hears her whisper once, in response to one of Veronica’s quiet, somewhat meddlesome questions, and it makes him grin shamelessly for a split second before Betty catches his eye and glares, and Jughead shuts down his smile, thinking the sobering thought that he should be glad Archie’s been so busy in the studio for the past few weeks, and he hasn’t had to field any questions from his own best friend. 

 

 

It’s closing in on midnight when Betty’s name pops up on his phone, and he answers after only two rings. “Hey.”

“Wow, you could play a little harder to get, Jones,” she says, her voice warm and just a little heavy with sleep. “Just two rings. It’s almost like you were waiting for me to call.” 

“Yeah, you caught me,” he jokes. “So what are you wearing?”

He can _hear_ her rolling her eyes. “Flannel PJ pants and a very old t-shirt.” 

“Oh, stop,” he teases. “If you tell me it’s baggy I won’t be able to control myself.” 

“ _So_ baggy,” she says, and he can hear the sound of sheets rustling. “Downright shapeless.” 

He smiles, imagining her nestled in her sheets, curled up on her side the way she likes to sleep. “Up late working?” 

“No,” she says, and then her voice drops to a whisper: “Veronica and I were talking. We’re going to start looking for apartments together. She hasn’t committed to anything yet, but she’s… seriously thinking about leaving Griff.”

“Wow,” Jughead says, feeling surprised and then experiencing a bloom of something in his chest, a sensation not altogether unlike the one he felt when Jellybean got into her first-choice college - something like pride. 

“Yeah.” 

“That’s… hey, if Ronnie marries Cheryl, will that make the two of you related in some vague way?” 

“They’re getting _married_ now?” Betty asks. “I was only just getting used to the idea of the two of them together.” 

“Once you get used to it,” he says, “it'll start to seem like it makes a lot of sense, the two of them.” 

“I’ll take your word for it, Jug,” she says, and yawns.

“Tired?” he asks, though he knows the answer is yes. He can hear the affection he has for her in his own voice, obnoxiously obvious.

“We drank a lot of wine,” Betty says. 

“Go to sleep, Betts. Thanks for calling to keep me up to date.” 

“Will I see you this weekend?” 

“ _Now_ who’s not playing hard to get?” 

She yawns again, and with a smile in her voice says, “Answer the question.” 

“You’ll see me this weekend,” he confirms, “if you’ll let me take you to dinner.”

“I’ll consider it,” she says, sheets rustling again, and he expects she’s got her eyes closed, phone pressed to her cheek. 

“Goodnight, Betts.” 

“G’night; love you,” she says. 

There are several seconds of complete silence between them. Jughead just holds his phone, frozen and unable to respond. 

“Oh my god,” Betty says, sounding much more awake. “I’m sorry. It was - that was just instinct. I’m sorry. I’m tired, and kind of tipsy, and I just - ” She exhales. “Sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” he manages to say. 

“Jug, I didn’t mean - ”

“I know,” he says, cutting her off before she can begin to ramble. “I know you didn’t mean it.” 

There’s another moment of silence, and then she speaks again, her voice strained. “Goodnight,” she says, and she hangs up before he can reply. 

 

 

tbc.


	7. Chapter 7

Betty begs off dinner on the weekend, telling him that a bunch of things have come up at work. He knows she’s lying, and he’s pretty sure she knows he knows, so he doesn’t bother calling her on it. 

On Friday night, he picks a random movie on Netflix and manages to watch fifteen minutes of it before he’s bored. He pauses the movie and calls his sister. 

Jellybean is delighted to hear from him, and keeps up a consistent stream of chatter for nearly half an hour. She tells him about her classes and says that she hates, absolutely _hates_ that she’s being forced to read _Tom Jones_ ; she tells him about her friends and how she’s learned to play flip cup; she tells him their mother’s been promoted to manager at the store she’s been working at for nearly a year now; she tells him about the boy she’s crushing on. 

When he’s finally able to get a word in, he says, “ _Tom Jones_ is a classic, JB. Tell Mom congrats for me, okay?” 

“I will.”

“Do I need to give you the safe sex talk?” 

“ _Ew_ , Jughead, no. Definitely not.” 

He sighs, relieved. “Be careful. I don’t want you getting hurt.” 

“Don’t worry, Jug. I tell all the boys my big brother used to be in a gang. I leave out the part where you became a writer with a lot of feelings.” 

“Great,” he says dryly. 

“Hey, how’s Veronica?” she asks brightly. 

He still doesn’t fully understand his little sister’s obsession with Veronica. Jellybean follows Veronica on Instagram and is constantly texting him about the posts she sees, demanding to know why his life isn’t glamorous by association. “She’s good,” he says. “I’ll tell her you say hi.” 

“Tell her I love her new purse!” 

“This materialistic side of you causes me pain,” he teases. 

“Yeah, well, it causes me pain that you’re calling me on a Friday. Don’t you have any friends?” 

“You know I don’t.” 

“Seriously, Juggie. You live in _New York City_. What’re you doing moping around on a Friday night?” 

“I’m not moping,” he protests. 

“Uh huh.” 

He sighs, glancing over the paused film on his computer. “My plans fell through.” 

“So make new plans! Go meet someone. A female someone.” 

“Forsythia,” Jughead says, a warning. 

“First of all, I hate you. Secondly, I’m serious, _Forsythe_. You know, one day all your hair is going to fall out, and who’s going to want you then?” 

He touches his hair in spite of himself, pulling on a strand of it. “I resent these assumptions you’re making about my future.” 

Jellybean laughs. “Well, I guess Dad still has his hair.” She pauses. “At least, he did. Maybe… he doesn’t anymore.” 

Jughead rubs a hand over his eyes. “Still no word, huh?” 

“No,” she says softly. 

“You ever think he’s dead, Jellybean?” he asks quietly. 

“Don’t say that, Juggie.” 

“I’m sorry, kid,” he says on a sigh. “It just… seems easier. Seems like the only valid excuse for the radio silence.” 

Jellybean’s silent for a moment, and then she says, “ _See_. You’re moping.” 

He smiles briefly. “I guess you got me.” 

“Go out and do something, Jug,” she says, full of encouragement. 

“I might,” he says slowly. 

“ _Do it_. And send me a selfie as proof.” 

That makes him laugh. “I’m morally opposed to selfies.” 

“I know,” she says, and he can envision her impish grin. “Wear nice jeans! Brush your hair! Love you!” And with that, she hangs up. 

 

 

Loathe as he is to admit it, his little sister has a point. He’s been letting Betty make the rules, following her lead - or, in this case, her lack of lead. He’s been wary of initiating anything, but maybe it’s time to start making moves of his own, to start taking the lead himself. After all, is he really going to let what they have (whatever that may be) disintegrate into nothing because she _accidentally told him she loved him_?

Jellybean’s words in his head, he puts on his nicest jeans, tries to tame his hair, and heads for the door. 

 

 

When the elevator doors slide open, the first thing Jughead sees is Veronica, sitting on the couch flipping aggressively through a copy of _Vogue_ , a long robe open over a very short, silky slip. Jughead stops worrying about how the doorman knows him so well now that he was casually waved toward the elevator and starts worrying about Veronica, whose face, which shows signs of tiredness, is settled into a sour expression. 

“Hey, Ronnie,” he says. 

“Betty!” she calls, flipping another page with such force Jughead’s surprised it doesn’t rip. “Your boy toy is here!” She crosses her legs and looks back at him, unimpressed. “She’s in her room.” 

“Do you… need to talk?” he asks cautiously. 

“Nope,” she says, her voice crisp and short, so Jughead hurries by her, deciding not to push his luck. 

He knocks on Betty’s door and rests his hand on the doorknob, only turning it once he hears her call, “Come in!” 

She’s sitting on her bed, curled up against pillows, a book in her hands and glasses he’s never seen before perched on her nose. The baggy sweater she’s wearing has fallen off one shoulder, revealing a thin bra strap. 

“Jug,” she says, surprised. 

“Hey,” he replies, nudging the door closed with his foot. 

Her head tilts. “What’re you… doing here?” 

“I wanted to talk to you.” As soon as he says that, her gaze drops back to her book, and he sees her lips begin to move, undoubtedly formulating the beginning of some kind of protest. He adds, “About my dad.” 

Her eyes fly back to his face. “Oh.” 

“Okay if I…?” He waves a hand toward her bed. 

“Yeah, of course.” She sets her book down. 

He crosses the room and sits down on her bedspread. Betty’s eyes rake over him, full of concern.

“Did something happen?” she asks.

“Sort of.” Jughead shifts a bit, trying to get more comfortable. “Five years ago. When he got out.” 

Betty’s hand creeps across the bed, but it stops halfway toward him. 

“He was doing… well, in prison. He joined AA. My mom was… really hopeful.” He sighs. “I think she felt like… if I could get back on track, then so could my dad.” He traces over a flower, finger pressing into the softness of the comforter. “They made plans. I was still in Maine then. My dad was going to leave jail, get on a bus, and go be with my mom and Jellybean. He was supposed to _be_ there - for Jelly, for her last years of high school. He was supposed to do all the things he’d always talked a big game about doing.” 

When he looks at Betty, he can see in her face that she knows how this story will end. 

Jughead blows out a breath. “He never showed up.” He shakes his head. “He hasn’t shown up since.” 

“You haven’t seen FP in five years?” she asks softly. 

“More than that, technically, but - yeah. I haven’t heard anything from him.” 

“Juggie, I’m sorry,” she says in the same soft voice. 

“Yeah.” He pushes a hand through his hair. “We all are. But the thing - the thing that makes it all worse is that sometimes I’m so _sure_ my mom’s been talking to him. I feel like she knows something, maybe even knows where he is, but she won’t tell me or JB because she’s protecting him, or - I don’t know, protecting herself. It’s like she doesn’t want us to know that they’ve both let us down again.” 

“Oh, Jug,” Betty murmurs. 

Not looking at her, he says, “I am _so_ angry with him.” 

“Of course you are,” she says, and this time her hand makes it all the way to him, her fingers closing around his and squeezing.

“Sometimes I honestly think I hate him,” Jughead says quietly. “Real, true, venomous hate. But then I imagine that he’s dead somewhere, and I - ” 

He can’t finish that sentence, but it doesn’t matter, because Betty shifts across the bed and wraps her arms around him, pulling him to her and holding him close. His cheek rests against her chest and he can hear the thrum of her heart. She bends her head and presses a kiss into his hair. Jughead’s throat aches, and his arms go around her, his hands clutching at the back of her sweater. 

“I’m sorry, Juggie,” she whispers. “I always had hope for your dad. I know you did, too.” 

“Yeah, well.” He swallows around the lump in his throat. “Hope’s dangerous.” 

“Oh, Jughead,” Betty says. There’s exasperation in her voice, tangled up with something so warm it could almost make him cry. “Shut up.”

 

 

He sleeps at Betty’s, atop her blankets, still in his clothes. In the morning, he reaches for her, and she rolls into his embrace, fitting her body snugly against his. When he tries to kiss her, she shifts her face a little so that his mouth lands on the corner of hers. 

“Betts,” he sighs. His eyes are still half-closed and he wants to spend the next hour kissing her slow and sleepily, until his stomach growls loud enough to make her laugh. 

She tucks her face against his shoulder. “I have to do something,” she murmurs, her voice thick with drowsiness. 

“It’s the weekend.”

“Not a work thing,” she says, hooking a leg up around his hips. 

Jughead nudges his nose into her hair and breathes her in. “Don’t start what you can’t finish, Elizabeth.” 

She laughs softly and goes to pull her leg away, but he puts his hand on her thigh, holding her leg where it is. 

“Mixed signals,” she murmurs. 

“Mmhm.” 

Cuddling closer to him, she says, “I have to have a conversation.” 

It takes him only a moment to understand. “With Archie.” 

“Yes.”

Reluctantly, he puts a bit of space between them so that he can look at her face. “Should we not maybe do that… together?”

Betty smiles, half-fond, half-wry. “Absolutely not.” 

“Okay, but maybe - do you want me to do it?” 

She shakes her head. “I know you guys have been blood brothers or whatever since you were six, but… I signed a marriage certificate. And I signed the divorce papers. It’s my conversation to have.” 

“Alright,” he murmurs, brushing his knuckles over her cheek. 

“We should get up, shouldn’t we?” she says, and Jughead shrugs. 

“It’s the weekend,” he says again, and after a moment she relents, letting her eyelids drop. 

“Five more minutes,” she says, and they sleep for two more hours. 

 

 

Once they’ve woken up again, Betty goes to take a shower, and he wanders out into the main rooms of the apartment. He finds Veronica in the kitchen eating half a grapefruit. 

“Good morning,” he says, joining her at the expansive island. 

“Look who stayed the night,” she replies, arching an eyebrow. 

“Is Griff home?” he asks quietly. 

She nods, extracting a section of the grapefruit with her pointed spoon. “He got in from Dubai last night.” 

He flattens his hands against the marble countertop. “Ronnie, you know I’m here for you, right? Whatever you need.” 

Veronica sighs, setting her spoon down. “I know. I’m not trying to be a bitch, Jughead, I’m just so… ”

“Confused about what you want?” he volunteers. “Unaccustomed to feeling like maybe you won’t get it?” 

She scowls at him, but there’s no heat in her eyes. “I really appreciate you being my sounding board about all of this for so long. But now it’s - it’s my thing, to figure out. Just like your shit with Betty is something for _you_ to figure out. They’re solo endeavours.” 

He nods. “Betty and I were thinking of going to get fresh bagels. You want to come?”

The way she glances down at the grapefruit tells him that she thinks it’s a tempting offer, but in the end she shakes her head. “No, thanks. You two go ahead.”

“Okay.” He gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze before he heads out of the kitchen. 

“Jughead?”

He turns around again when Veronica says his name. “Yeah?”

Looking very serious, and holding her grapefruit spoon in a mildly threatening way, she says, “If you break her heart again, I _will_ break all your fingers.” 

He smiles slightly. “I believe it.” 

“Good,” she says, giving him a brief, small smile of her own before she returns her attention to her grapefruit, staring at it like it holds the answers to all her problems. 

 

 

That evening, Jughead manages to write about a thousand words he doesn’t absolutely hate before his phone buzzes with a text from Betty: _I told Arch._

He barely has time to write _you ok?_ before there’s a knock on his door. He gets up to answer it, knowing exactly who it is. 

Archie’s expression is the one he wears when he’s trying to solve a problem, bafflement and seriousness mixed together. “You’re sleeping with my wife,” he says. He pauses, blinks, and self-corrects, “Ex-wife.”

“Come in, man,” Jughead says. 

Archie does, heading for the couch and sitting down heavily. Jughead closes the door and joins him. 

For a moment, they sit in silence, and then Jughead asks, cautiously, “You… okay?”

Looking at the floor, Archie says, “She cried. When she told me. She said it was important that I know nothing happened before we were divorced.”

“That’s true.” 

“I believe that. I believe that there was nothing… physical, before. But there had to be _something_.” Archie looks up. “Betty and I were married for five years. The two of you barely spoke to each other for ten. For it to start so quickly, the two of you, there had to be something there.” 

Jughead doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Have you been in love with her?” Archie asks. “This whole time?”

“No,” Jughead says immediately. “No. Like you said, it’s been ten years since we were together. That’s a long time.” 

“Yeah,” Archie agrees, and now there’s a hint of sadness mixed in with the confusion in his eyes. “It’s a really long time to love someone.” 

Jughead sighs. “Archie - ”

“I asked you, Jug. I asked you if you’d be okay if I dated Betty. You said yes.” 

He sighs again. “Arch, I wanted you to be happy. Betty too.” 

“I asked you to be my best man,” Archie says. “When I married her. And I only asked you that because you told me years before that you were okay with us being together, and I figured maybe you might have been lying a little then, but after some time passed, it had to be the truth. I wouldn’t have asked you that if I knew you weren’t over her, it’s - god, what a _dick_ move.” 

“I am over her,” Jughead says firmly. “Or, I was. Or - ” He shakes his head. “I’d put my relationship with Betty behind me. What was important was that you loved her. And that she loved you.” He coughs, trying to get rid of the sudden lump in his throat. “She picked you.” 

Archie looks at Jughead like he’s a total and complete idiot, which is something that happens so very rarely that Jughead’s surprise is physical - he leans back a little under the impact of Archie’s _look_. 

“Do you think she ever would have picked me,” Archie says lowly, “if she’d known you were an option?” 

For a split second, Jughead can’t breathe, but he manages to pull himself together and say, “No, Archie - c’mon. Betty loved you. She loved you.” 

Archie leans his elbows on his knees and presses his face into his hands for a beat. When he resurfaces he says, tiredly, “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, Jug.” 

“Archie,” he says quietly, feeling very sorry, “I’m not. I - ”

“You let me make an ass of myself,” Archie interrupts him. “I asked things of you, _said_ things to you, that I never would have, if I’d known the truth.” 

“How I felt wasn’t the point,” Jughead says seriously. 

Archie looks so sad and weighed down, like he’s sinking beneath ten years’ worth of realizations. “It was always the point,” he says, “for her.” 

Jughead has no response for that. He just looks at his friend, hoping his expression adequately displays both an apology and a series of protests: _No one treated you like you were stupid, Archie. You’re my brother and I love you. Betty wanted you, I know she did._

“I need some time,” Archie says, raking fingers through his hair. “I’ve gotta… process.” 

He gets up and heads for the door. By the time it shuts behind him, Jughead still hasn’t been able to say a single word. 

 

 

He paces around his apartment for a few minutes, opens a window to let in a blast of cool air in the hopes that it will help clear his mind, and calls Betty.

“Hey,” she greets, and guesses, “He came to see you?”

“Yeah.” 

“How was it?”

“It… could have gone worse, I guess,” Jughead says. At least Archie hadn’t punched him. “Are you okay, Betts?” 

“I hated putting that look on his face,” she says softly. “He looked so sad.”

“He’ll be okay,” Jughead tells her gently. “He just needs some time to wrap his head around it.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“More or less.” 

She sighs. “Okay. I guess I’ll just… try and be patient.” 

“Betty Cooper? _Patient_?”

“Shut up,” she says. He knows, with certainty, that she’s rolling her eyes, and he hopes she’s smiling a little too. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been very patient waiting for J. Jones III to publish his next novel.” 

Jughead’s finally walked off his nervous energy, and he flops down lengthwise on the couch. “I think I’ve heard of that guy. Writes mediocre books at a painfully slow pace.” 

“I wouldn’t say mediocre.” 

“No? You’d go a little harsher? Maybe ‘unreadable’?” 

“I’d go with ‘poignant,’ I think.” 

“Wow,” he says, smiling. “That’s the kind of word that could get a man on a bestseller list.” 

“Well, I suppose I should try and get myself on an Arts beat before he finishes that next novel of his, then.”

“Suppose you should,” he agrees. 

There’s a moment of companionable quiet, and then Betty says, “Juggie?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever think about… what our lives would’ve been like? If everything… hadn’t gone to hell?”

“Sure,” he says slowly. “Sometimes.” 

“Tell me,” Betty says. “Tell me what they’d be like.” 

He shifts on the sofa, getting more comfortable. “Well… we’d have finished high school in Riverdale. And you wanted to go to California for college, so we’d have done that. We would have had to trade off - you’d go to school while I worked and wrote, and when you were done and you had a job, I’d get my degree.” 

“What else?” she prompts softly. 

“You’d start looking like something out of a Beach Boys song, and after a few rounds of heatstroke I’d probably have to give up my leather jackets.” He can imagine Betty on a beach, sun-kissed and shimmering with perfection. “We’d probably get married,” he says a bit more cautiously, not wanting to freak her out. “Maybe have a kid.”

“Forsythe Pendleton Jones the fourth?”

“Yeah,” he says on a laugh. “That should guarantee he’s bullied in kindergarten.” 

“You could always drop that tradition,” Betty says. “Start your own.” 

“That’s tempting,” he admits. “Naming my fictional progeny is serious business, after all.” 

“Theoretical,” she corrects, “not fictional. What else?”

“Uh, well… ” He takes a second to think. “You’d travel the world and break the biggest stories of our time. The kid and I would tag along. I guess I’d homeschool him.” 

“He won’t have any friends.” 

“That’s what siblings are for. He’ll have adventure.” 

“And then what?” she asks. 

“And then… I’d write, and you’d chase down stories, and when you got tired of it we’d retire in the south of France and have six dogs.”

“Rescues.”

“Of course.” 

“And you’d be the twenty-first century’s Henry James.” 

Jughead laughs, and in his terrible French accent tells her, “A la guerre comme à la guerre.” 

“I am charmed with your courage,” Betty quotes softly, “and almost surprised at my own.” 

“Well, well,” he says lightly. “Look who’s a fan of Charlotte Stant.” 

“That’d be a good name for a kid,” she says. Her words are lazy and soft and she’d called all this _theoretical_ , the meaning of which is totally unclear to him, but Jughead’s chest constricts nonetheless. “Charlotte.” 

“For a girl, right? Or are we trying to make sure this child is teased mercilessly for its whole theoretical life?” 

“ _Yes_ , Jug, for a girl.” 

He doesn’t want to bring them back to reality, but he can’t quite help himself. “You wanted that, didn’t you?” he asks her. “A baby.” 

“Yeah,” she says, soft and sure. “When it’s right. When I know I won’t turn into my mother. And, as much as I love Polly, when I know I won’t turn into my sister, either. Then - yeah. I want a baby.” 

“You’ll be a good mom.”

“Thanks, Juggie,” she says, and it feels like the warmth in her voice spreads throughout his whole body. There’s some rustling on her end of the line, and he suspects she’s getting ready for bed. “What else?” she asks him. 

“What _else_? Uh. Chickens?”

Betty laughs and demands to know who, exactly, is going to be cleaning the chicken coop. Jughead talks to her until she falls asleep. 

 

 

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your feedback and comments mean so much to me - thank you so much.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick update this time since it'll be a bit of a wait for the next chapter.

An uber is on the way, and Jughead is watching Betty slip back into her work outfit of a pencil skirt and blouse, when he says, “Let me take you to dinner this Friday.” 

She tucks her shirt into her skirt, trying to smooth out wrinkles. “That sounds an awful lot like a date.” 

He swings his legs over the side of the bed, putting his feet on the floor. “Just dinner, Betts.”

“Jug, I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe we should just - ”

“Betty, it’s some food and a couple glasses of wine. I’m just asking you to show up for a couple hours and hopefully have a good time. That’s it. That’s all I’m asking.” 

“It’s just… hard,” she sighs. “We have so much history.” 

“Just dinner, baby.” 

“You can’t call me that,” she huffs. “It’s so unfair, it - ”

“Betty.” He reaches for both of her hands, taking them in his own. “Don’t make me beg.”

She rolls her eyes, but he can feel her softening as her fingers weave through his. “Let me pay for my own meal,” she bargains. 

Jughead smiles. “Hey, you can pay for the whole thing. I’m generous like that.” 

Betty rolls her eyes again and leans in to kiss him. It’s almost as though he can taste her fear and uncertainty on her lips, and he untangles their hands to touch her cheeks, a reassuring gesture.

“You’re not my boyfriend,” she whispers when they pull apart.

His eyebrows lift a bit, but he says, simply, “Noted.” 

“But I…” She trails off and a car horn blares outside - her ride has arrived. “Shit,” she says, pulling away from him and going to grab her purse and her coat. Halfway to the door, she turns around quickly and asks, “You’ll pick me up?”

“Like a gentleman,” he agrees. “I’ll text you a time.” 

She smiles that small, heartfelt smile of hers, the one that makes him feel like he’s won a prize. The car horn sounds again and she blows him a kiss, hurrying out the door. He listens to her footsteps on the stairs until they fade away into silence. 

 

 

On Friday, after having done a painstaking amount of research and making a reservation at a restaurant he can only sort of afford to eat at, Jughead arrives at the Lodge-Greenwich residence in his nicest slacks, a shirt that he’d actually ironed, and a blazer, only to be greeted with the sight of Reggie Mantle walking through the entryway with an espresso maker in his hands. 

“Hey, Jughead,” Reggie says, sounding somewhat glum. He carries on his way without a word of explanation for his presence. 

“Hey…” Jughead says, glancing around in confusion. There is a large stack of flattened cardboard boxes in the living room. “Uh, Betty?” he calls. 

She appears, not in a pretty dress like he’d expected, but in a Columbia sweater and a pair of jean shorts, her hair tied in a knot atop her head. “Hey,” she says, though her smile fades nearly as quickly as it forms. “Did you not get Ronnie’s text?” 

He digs his phone out of his pocket. “I was on the subway.”

Sure enough, he has a text from Veronica waiting for him: _your date is cancelled but still come over. be prepared 4 manual labour._ He looks up at Betty. “What’s happening?” 

“She did it,” Betty says. “She broke up with Griff. He’s off drowning his sorrows, and we’re packing. Apparently we’re moving out in the morning.” 

“Shit,” Jughead says, looking around. He can’t imagine Veronica packing even a sixteenth of her possessions between now and when the sun rises. 

“Yeah.” She steps closer and touches his arm. “I’m sorry about tonight.” She bites her lip briefly and adds, in a softer voice, “You look really nice.” 

He smiles at her and teases, “So do you.” He leans in and presses a quick kiss to her lips. “I’ll take a rain check, don’t worry about it.” He unbuttons his blazer and shrugs out of it before starting to roll up his sleeves. “Put me to work, Betts.” 

“You should probably help Reggie,” she says. “He’s - ”

“Jughead!” Veronica’s voice rings out, interrupting Betty. She’s striding toward them, looking highly caffeinated and slightly on edge. “Betty insists that I can’t call Archie because his delicate musician’s heart would simply break at the sight of the two of you in the same place at the same time. Can you please tell her she’s wrong?”

“Uh - ” He glances at Betty, who shrugs helplessly. 

“Jughead?” Veronica prods.

“I’ll call him,” he says. “Let him know the situation. But I can’t promise to persuade him to come.” 

She makes an annoyed sound but says, “That will have to do, I guess.” 

“Hey, Veronica?” he says with a certain amount of caution. When she quirks an eyebrow at him, prompting him to continue, he steps forward and gives her a hug. She’s tense for a beat and then she hugs him back, holding onto him tightly for a couple seconds. “I think you’re doing the right thing, for what it’s worth,” he tells her before they let go of one another. 

“Yo, Ronnie!” Reggie calls from the master bedroom. “Should I start packing your underwear or is that like a _you_ job?” 

Veronica rolls her eyes, throwing Jughead a quick smile before she stalks back toward the bedroom. 

He turns back to Betty. “I guess I’m calling Archie.” 

“You’re a good sport,” she says. “And a good friend.” She touches his cheek briefly before she grabs another box and heads for her own bedroom. 

 

 

When he calls, Archie doesn’t answer, so he texts _important SOS situation_ , and two minutes later Archie returns his call, asking, “What?” gruffly. 

Jughead explains as best as he can, succinctly, and Archie says, “What? Ronnie did _what_? Veronica and _Cheryl_? What? How is this even - _what_?” 

“Veronica wants you to come.” 

“Okay,” Archie says. He seems completely overwhelmed by this onslaught of information. “I’m on my way.”

“Thanks. I know she’ll appreciate it.” 

Archie takes a second to hang up, and before the line goes dead, Jughead hears him muttering to himself about Cheryl Blossom. 

 

 

Once Archie arrives and starts putting his hard-earned biceps to work, Jughead retreats to Betty’s room to help her out. She doesn’t have a ton of stuff, but he helps her fold sweaters and dresses and put books into boxes. When they’re done, they’re assigned to Veronica’s massive walk-in closet, where they pack up her absurdly large collection of high heels and then move on to evening gowns. 

Betty keeps telling him to try and be _neat_ , but Jughead is so far out of his wheelhouse that his definition of neat does not seem to match hers. She keeps taking dresses from him after her attempts to fold them, tsking at his attempts and then laying them neatly in the boxes, arranging them so that they won’t crease.

“Why didn’t she get one of those standing wardrobe things?” he asks in a voice that borders on whiny. He’s sitting on the closet floor, doing much more Betty-watching than he is packing. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, Jug,” she says, reaching for a dress with more straps across its back than Jughead can count, “this is sort of a last-minute thing.” 

He carefully bats away the bottom of a sequinned dress that keeps brushing against his shoulder. “Is she okay, do you think?” 

“As okay as can be expected.” 

“You think she made the right choice?” 

Betty’s hands still for a moment and then she carries on packing. “Yeah, I do. Life is short, right? You’ve got to try to be happy. And you’ve got to go after love if you’ve got a chance at it.” 

Jughead’s mouth stretches into a smile, and he can _feel_ that it’s stupid and soft and lovestruck. He’s about to reply to her when the sequinned dress he’d batted away falls directly onto him, followed by an avalanche of its peers. 

“Juggie!” Betty cries as he sputters - he has tulle in his mouth. “You knocked down like _ten_ of them, oh my god…” 

“I’m fine, Betts,” he says dryly from beneath the dresses. “Thanks for worrying about me.” 

She locates him beneath a purple dress that he’s pretty sure has a train, looking somewhat annoyed and reluctantly amused. “You’re being _extremely_ helpful,” she says, reaching down to start collecting dresses, and he grabs her elbow and tugs her down next to him. 

Betty squeals, falling into the pile of cloth with him. “ _Jughead -_ ”

“It’s not my fault,” he says innocently, grinning at the affronted look on her face. “It’s like gala dress quicksand.”

“You’re the worst,” she says, but she’s laughing and there are two pink spots high on her cheeks. 

He brushes a lock of hair out of her face, and then cups her cheeks in his hands. She’s smiling, her nose oh-so-slightly scrunched in disapproval, and Jughead thinks _I love you, you beautiful, annoyingly determined girl_ and leans in to kiss her, but just before their lips meet, someone clears their throat forcefully and says, “Betts.” 

Betty pulls back from him like she’s been burnt, looking toward the doorway of the closet. She bites the corner of her lower lip nervously. “Hi, Arch.” 

His gaze is fixed on one of the half-filled boxes in the room. “Ronnie wants you.” 

“Of course,” Betty says, hopping to her feet. Archie takes off before she can get close to him, Betty’s gone a second later, and Jughead’s left alone in a pile of gowns. 

 

 

The movers arrive at seven o’clock on the dot the next morning, and, miraculously, everything seems to be packed. Archie and Reggie take off, rubbing their eyes and arguing about where they’re going to go to get the coffee, eggs, and bacon they’re desperate for. Jughead’s also hungry, but he goes with Betty and Veronica in a taxi to the new apartment Veronica’s chosen, which isn’t all that far away. 

He gives himself the job of holding a door open, and stands there, propping it open with one foot and yawning continuously, while Veronica orders the movers around, directing them to various rooms. Betty perches atop a box and leans her cheek in a hand, closing her eyes. 

The moment the movers are gone, Veronica puts on a playlist called _90s Jams_ and immediately begins to _un_ pack. Jughead turns to Betty with what he’s sure is something resembling abject horror on his face as Veronica starts removing shoes from boxes and sorting them by heel height and the Spice Girls tell him what they want, what they really, really want. 

Betty shakes her head, comes over and grabs his hand, and drags him to her new room. They both drop down on the uncovered mattress and fall asleep in less than a minute. 

 

 

When he wakes in the early afternoon, he bolts upright, momentarily startled by his unfamiliar circumstances. Betty reaches a sleepy hand out toward him, resting it against his abdomen. 

He glances over at her. The room is warm, and at some point she took off her sweater, and she’s sleeping only in her pale pink bra and shorts. Jughead touches her shoulder gently with his knuckles and she blinks her eyes open. 

“For a second there, I thought it was all a dream,” he says. 

Her mouth tilts up at its edges. “The Veronica Lodge effect.” 

“Did you sleep alright?” 

She makes a face. “I definitely want to put my bed frame together again by tonight.” 

“I’ll help you,” he says, and lies down again. 

“Thanks,” she says through a yawn. 

“I’m tired, too,” he says. “And this outfit of yours is totally doing it for me, but we’ve got to go get breakfast. I feel like I’m wasting away.” 

“Mm,” Betty murmurs, stretching her arms over her head. “I think we’re closer to lunchtime. Maybe even dinner.” She looks into his face. “I really am sorry about last night. I was looking forward to it.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She rolls onto her stomach and props herself up on her elbows, which gives him an amazing view of her cleavage. “Why did you say it like that?”

He reaches over and lazily runs a finger down between her breasts. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, like… like you were surprised. That I was looking forward to it.” 

Jughead sighs, resting a forearm against his forehead. “I guess I’m not… totally sure where we stand.” 

“I’m not, either,” she admits quietly. “But I - ” Her tongue slips out of her mouth, gliding over her bottom lip. “You looked so handsome when you showed up last night. I could’ve jumped you right there.” 

He grins slowly. “Are you objectifying me, Elizabeth?” 

Wryly, she says, “I don’t think you can ask me that while you’re staring at my boobs.” 

“That,” Jughead says, slipping a bra strap off her shoulder, “is not an answer.” 

“Let’s do it tonight,” she says softly, almost shyly. “Dinner.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Stop _saying_ that,” she laughs. “ _Yeah_.” 

“Are you asking me out, Betts?” 

She shrugs and then abruptly pushes off the mattress, clambering to her feet. “Let me get dressed; we’ll go get food before you perish.” 

Jughead watches her dig through a bag for clothes and teases, “The female of the species can be very evasive when she so chooses.”

Betty throws a pair of jeans at his face. 

 

 

Take two of their dinner date goes much more smoothly. 

Jughead arrives to pick Betty up at six in the same blazer, the same pants (refreshed by his iron), and a new shirt. She looks a hell of a lot different than she did in her college sweater and shorts; she’s wearing a deep green wrap dress that cinches at her waist, her hair an artful mess of waves. 

Unable to help his grin, Jughead tries to moderate his tone when he says, “You look decent.”

“She is a _smoke show_ ,” Veronica says. “Can I take a picture?”

Jughead cringes. “Ronnie, we’re not going to prom.”

“You kind of are,” she argues. “You didn’t in high school.” 

As Jughead helps her into her coat, Betty says, out of the corner of her mouth, “She’s running on about an hour of sleep.” 

“ _She_ can still hear.” 

“V, please just watch a couple episodes of whatever reality show is on TV right now and then go to bed, okay?” Betty says, stepping forward and tugging Veronica into a hug. “You’ve unpacked enough. The place is gorgeous.” She puts her hands on Veronica’s shoulders and says, firmly, “You’ve been brave. Try and relax now.” 

Veronica sighs, pulling Betty into another hug and tucking her face against the blonde’s shoulder. They stay there for a couple minutes, until Veronica’s ready to let go. Sounding more tired now, she says, “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

Jughead salutes her, using his other hand to open the door for Betty. 

Outside, her heels create a steady _click-clack_ rhythm on the sidewalk, and he slides an arm around her waist. “So, I had a reservation at a fancy place yesterday, and when I tried to re-book for tonight they weren’t really having it. But I know a good place.” 

She wraps an arm around him in return. “Okay. Colour me intrigued.” 

“It’s a bit of a haul, but it is walkable. Would you rather take the subway?”

“No, we can walk. It’s sort of nice out.” 

He tugs her just a little bit closer. “You look beautiful.” 

Betty smiles at him. “Thanks. So do you.”

He laughs softly. “Thanks.” He leans over to kiss her and she kisses him back with more heat than he’d expected, full of demand and desire, her mouth insistent against his. Jughead breaks the kiss and glances in front of them quickly to make sure they’re not about to walk into anyone or anything. “You’re turning us into a hazard,” he tells her. 

“Sorry,” she laughs, blushing a little. “I’m… ”

“Horny?” he supplies cheekily. 

She smacks the back of her hand lightly against his chest. “ _Happy_.” 

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” he tells her, but his smile has shifted from teasing to fond, and he pulls her firmly against his side, planting a kiss on her temple that’s meant to tell her, wordlessly: _Me too._

 

 

The place he takes her is unassuming, with virtually no decor to speak of and a very short wine list, but it has the best Italian food in the city, as far as Jughead’s concerned. They order two different kinds of gnocchi and glasses of red. 

Over dinner, they worry briefly about Veronica and then talk about Cheryl; Betty tells him about how Cheryl’s pulling a lot of strings in the syrup business and then informs him of the existence of a maple syrup mafia in Montreal, which Jughead finds so ludicrous that he can’t take her on her word and has to Google it. Betty gives him a run-down of her insufferable coworker’s latest annoying behaviour, finishing the story off with a long drink of wine, and Jughead tells her about the progress one of his favourite students is making, appreciating the warm glow in her eyes as she listens. They argue about movies and, even though they’re both stuffed, order tiramisu to share for dessert. 

Jughead’s phone, which has been sitting in the corner of the table since he took it out to do his Google search, keeps lighting up. “Do you need to get that?” Betty asks. She skims her tongue over one of the tines of her fork, licking off a bit of leftover custard, and his brain momentarily short-circuits. 

“No,” he says, flipping it over. “It’s just Jellybean.” 

“Everything okay with her?” 

“Everything is totally fine,” he says with a fond shake of his head. “She wants me to send her a selfie to prove to her that I’m not sitting at home on my couch.” 

Betty smiles. “So do it.” 

He feigns offense. “Betty, I will have you know that I’ve _never_ taken a selfie, and I’m not about to start now.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, waving a hand. “You’re very cool. Too cool for trends. Come on, give your sister peace of mind. She probably thinks you’re a few days away from adopting three cats.” 

Jughead blinks, and asks, with a touch of legitimate concern, “Is that the vibe I’m giving off?” 

She crosses her arms. “C’mon, just do it. There’s a first time for everything.” 

He consider it for a half-second and shakes his head. “Yeah, no.” 

“Don’t be stubborn. Here, I’ll help you.” Betty shuffles her chair around the table until she’s sitting closer to him, grabs his phone, and opens the front-facing camera. When they’re both in focus in the frame, she says, “Okay, now smile like you have a vague notion of what happiness is.” 

He can’t help but smile but when she says that - he’s always appreciated it when she gets sarcastic. On his phone’s screen, he sees that his smile makes her smile, and that sight makes his own smile widen a bit. 

“Perfect,” Betty says, and at the last second throws two fingers up behind his head in bunny ears. She hands him the phone and gives him a prompting look, eyebrows raised. Jughead heaves a put-upon sigh and sends the photo to his sister. 

Betty shifts her chair back to its original position. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Your soul is still in tact?” 

“I feel like I’ve lost some of my integrity,” he says, taking a sip of his wine. 

She picks up her glass too, and lifts it slightly. “To firsts,” she says, a hint of teasing in her voice. 

Jughead clinks his glass lightly against hers. “To firsts,” he echoes, holding her gaze as those words settle around them. 

 

 

Ten minutes after they’ve left the restaurant, he says, “I’m kind of hungry.” 

Betty gapes at him. “Are you serious? I don’t think I’ll eat until Monday.” 

He shrugs. “Yeah, I could kind of go for some pizza.” 

“You’re a medical marvel,” she murmurs. She takes her phone out of her purse. “Alright, let’s find you pizza.” 

“Yeah?”

She pokes a finger into his chest. “ _Yeah_ me one more time, Jones,” she says with an exasperated shake of her head. She meets his eyes and says, “I want you to be happy, Juggie. Stop being surprised at that.”

He takes her hand from his chest and lifts it to kiss her fingers. She thumbs his bottom lip and then pulls her hand away so that she can start searching for the nearest good pizza on her phone. 

While she does that, Jughead pulls out his own phone only to find eleven text messages from Jellybean. The first is just a long series of exclamation marks, followed by one that reads _omg are you on a date?!?!_ , then _GET MARRIED_ , then _jk but not jk_. Others include _she is way too pretty for you omg_ , and toward the end _you look happy juggie :) :) :) :)_ , an annoyed _JUGHEAD_ when he still hasn’t replied to her, and then, finally, a text that reads _YOU NEVER TELL ME ANYTHING YOU SUCK_ accompanied by a link. 

He presses on the link to open it in his browser. It’s an article - or what passes for an article these days - announcing that Archie Andrews will be debuting a new single at a popular bar next weekend. He tilts his phone in Betty’s direction. “Have you seen this?” 

She looks at his screen, her brow creasing. “No,” she says, putting her own phone in her pocket and taking his. She scrolls down slightly and reads, “You’ll never believe it, but we’ve heard from a credible source that Andrews wrote this song in less than twenty-four hours.” 

“Probably a PR thing,” Jughead says. “He had something good in the works a couple weeks ago.” 

“Well, either way… good for him,” Betty says, handing the phone back. 

He types out a quick text to Jellybean so that she’ll stop bombarding him with messages, and asks Betty, “Do you think you’ll go?” 

She nods slowly. “Even if we’re not friends right now, I want to be, someday. And I want him to know that.” She tilts her head. “You?” 

“Yeah, I think so. He’s my friend, even if he might hate me a little right now.” 

“We can’t go together,” she says softly. 

“Of course not,” he says, and takes a chance, teases her, “After all, we’re _not_ together, Betty. I can’t believe you’d be so presumptuous as to think we were. This is absolutely not a date. This is just a woman trying to help a man find some post-dinner pizza.” 

She presses her lips together in a way that he knows means she’s holding back a smile and points in the direction she thinks they should go. “Post-dinner pizza’s due west, you idiot.” 

“Lead the way,” he says falling into step with her. “You know, that’d be a really rude thing to say if we were on a date.” 

“Good thing we’re not then.” 

“Good thing we’re not,” Jughead agrees. 

Across the space between them, Betty’s hand sneaks into his. He doesn’t let go until he needs his hand for pizza-holding purposes.

 

 

tbc.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's recommended listening is Ed Sheeran's "Happier." (You'll note that I was selective with the lyrics I used from this song.)

The week flies by, and Jughead only gets to see Betty once due to their conflicting schedules. He goes over to the new apartment she shares with Veronica, and Betty falls asleep ten minutes into _Vertigo_ , her head on a throw pillow and her feet in his lap. 

“So much for date night, hm?” Veronica asks, sitting down in an armchair and turning down the volume on the television.

“She works too hard,” Jughead says with a small shrug, glancing over at Betty’s peaceful face. “I think she said she woke up at four today.” 

“She can be a machine when she wants to be, that’s for sure,” Veronica says, reaching over for a handful of popcorn. “So… I think Cheryl’s going to come to the city on the weekend. For Archie’s thing.” 

Jughead’s eyebrows lift minutely. “You going to invite Val, too, just to have a full convention of Archie’s exes?” 

Veronica rolls her eyes, flushing slightly. “Okay, so that’s not exactly the _reason_ Cheryl’s coming, but we’re both going to go.” 

“He’ll appreciate the support, I’m sure,” Jughead says easily. 

Veronica studies her carefully shaped nails. “This is the first time I’ll see her. You know, since.” 

“Are you nervous?” 

She shakes her head automatically and then stops and shrugs instead. “Maybe a little.” She nods toward Betty and asks, softly, “Does she still make you nervous?” 

He looks at Betty again and rubs her ankle very gently. “Basically every minute,” he admits. “But she also makes me feel… the complete opposite of nervousness.” 

Veronica smiles, and for a second there’s a glint in her eyes like she’s going to start teasing him, but it fades away. “I really want this to work, Jughead,” she breathes, like she’s confessing her deepest secret. 

“I know,” he says. “And I think you showed her that.” 

“I hope so.” She sighs, curling her legs up into the chair. “I want everything to work out. Not just for me - for all of us.”

“That’s very selfless of you, Veronica Lodge.” 

She shoots him a look and then her gaze softens, sliding over to Betty before she looks at his face again. “I love you guys.” 

He smiles, and she sounds so earnest that he can’t even joke about it, can only say, “I know, Ronnie.” 

She stretches over for another handful of popcorn. “Hey, so, I know you’re technically _using_ the TV and that was totally fine because you guys were supposed to be on some semblance of a date, but Betty’s _asleep_ now, and _Top Model_ ’s on, and I know you don’t care, but this is the _penultimate_ episode, and - ”

Jughead hands her the remote wordlessly and slouches back into the couch cushions, tracing the sharp point of Betty’s ankle bone lightly with his thumb as Veronica stops the movie and puts on a show where women are posing in avant-garde dresses. 

 

 

Due to some complicated, slightly convoluted Veronica-logic that Jughead doesn’t entirely understand, he goes to Archie’s thing with her, and Betty accompanies Cheryl. Whatever logic determined the arrangement, however, seems to go out the window once everyone has had a drink or two, and Jughead ends up standing with Betty near the bar while Veronica and Cheryl get cozy in the corner of a booth. 

Betty looks beautiful in a soft yellow dress with a pattern of tiny white birds. With her hair down, she looks like a literal ray of sunshine. She’s being very careful not to touch him, though, so instead of settling a hand at the small of her back or pressing a kiss to her cheek, Jughead settles for telling her, “You look great tonight.” 

“Thanks, Jug,” she says. She’s emanating a certain amount of nervous energy, occasionally exhaling sharply and constantly wringing her hands. 

He glances at her fingers, which she’s locked together at the knuckles, wondering if there’s a way to still her, to calm her, without actually touching her, when he notices a glint of silver on her right hand. Half a second later, her hands move again, and she starts to spin the inner band of the worry ring on her finger. 

Jughead’s heart vaults into his throat, and he’s struggling to string words together when Betty says, “They look happy, don’t they?” 

He tries to swallow his heart back down and follows her gaze - she’s looking at Cheryl and Veronica, who are smirking at each other, the corners of their eyes crinkled in a way that betrays the happiness Betty’s noticing. “Yeah,” he says thickly. He clears his throat. “Yeah, they do.”

She’s still toying with her ring. “I heard some things last night I definitely could have gone my entire life without hearing,” she says wryly, offering him a little smile. 

He wants to smile back at her, wants to joke around and fall into easy conversation, but he can’t, because his brain is an endless loop of the same sentiment: _she kept the ring she kept the ring she kept the ring_. 

Betty frowns slightly. “Juggie, you okay?”

“Yeah,” he manages to say just as the bar bursts into applause. Archie has taken the stage. 

 

 

Archie thanks everyone for coming, makes a couple jokes to get the crowd chuckling, and gamely calls “Love you back!” to a woman who’d yelled _Love you, Archie!_ to him. 

He plays three of his old songs, including _It’s You_ , and a cover of _Drops of Jupiter_ , before he says, “I’ve got a little something new to play. I hope you like it.” 

There’s a beat of silence, and then another, and Jughead can see Archie steeling himself, like he used to have to in high school, when an audience made him nervous. He hears Veronica make a sound halfway between _woo!_ and a catcall; Archie glances up, grins, and starts to play. 

“Walking down 29th and Park, I saw you in another’s arms. Only a month we’ve been apart - you look happier.” Archie draws in a breath. “Saw you walk inside a bar, he said something to make you laugh. I saw that both your smiles were twice as wide as ours, yeah. You look happier, you do.” 

Jughead straightens a little from where he’s been lazily leaning against the bar. On his right, Betty doesn’t seem to be breathing. 

“Baby, you look happier; you do. My friends told me one day I’ll feel it too.” 

Very slowly, Betty lifts her hand, pressing fingertips to her lips. Jughead glances quickly at Veronica and sees laser focus in her eyes; her gaze moving steadily between Archie and Betty. 

“Sat in the corner of the room. Everything’s reminding me of you. Nursing an empty bottle, and telling myself you’re happier. Aren’t you?” Archie plucks guitar strings, glancing up at the crowd briefly before he plays through the rest of his song. “Baby, you look happier; you do. I knew one day you’d fall for someone new.” 

When he’s done, the last chord of the song still reverberating through the room, he smiles that sheepish smile of his, the one that always emerges after he sings something new. People begin to clap, and Betty disappears from Jughead’s side. 

He watches her as she moves through the crowd toward the small stage. He doesn’t need to glance to his left to know that Veronica’s on the verge of getting out of her seat. 

Betty stops right in front of the stage. She looks at Archie and he looks at her. There’s a moment of stillness, and then Archie tilts his head slightly, extending an arm toward her. 

She steps up onto the stage, and Archie swings his guitar around to his back as Betty wraps her arms around his neck. His arms go around her in return, and there’s the smallest shake to Betty’s shoulders. They hold onto each other for a long, lingering moment, and the applause in the room is punctuated by soft _aww_ s and quiet murmurs. Jughead watches as they pull apart to look at each other and exchange a few words before resuming their hug for another few seconds. 

When they release one another, Betty steps off the stage, her hair falling on either side of her face like curtains, hiding her eyes. She walks through the bar and people make way for her, stepping aside. Jughead watches her move past him and looks over at Veronica, who mouths _Go_ at him with a roll of her eyes. 

He rolls his eyes back at her, annoyed, but immediately follows Betty’s path out of the bar. She’s standing outside, her back against the bar’s brick exterior, watching traffic with glassy eyes. 

“Hey,” he says quietly. 

She meets his eyes, and he can see her swallow. “Hi.” 

She’s shivering, goosebumps on her skin, so Jughead shrugs out of his leather jacket and loops it around her shoulders gently. Her hands lift to hold it around herself. She tilts toward him, and he wraps an arm around her automatically, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. 

Betty turns her face into his shoulder, and he hears the shuddering sound of a repressed sob followed by faint sniffling. Jughead just holds her, and after a moment she lifts her hand to touch his cheek, and he can feel the solid, cool metal of her ring against his skin. 

 

 

Back at his place, Betty shrugs off his leather jacket and drapes it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “I feel… gross,” she says, waving a hand toward her face; her nose is still a little red, and her cheeks are a bit blotchy from the tears she’s cried. “Can I take a shower?”

“Sure,” he says, congratulating himself on remembering to do laundry as he goes to get her a clean towel. 

When he hands it to her, she hugs it against herself and says, “You can join, if you want.” 

He almost says _yeah?_ but at the last moment he catches himself and says, instead, “You sure?” 

She nods, looking down at her feet. “I’m okay. I mean - what he did, it was a good thing. Archie and I are going to be okay, and that’s - that’s something I really want. It’s good. And the song was good, it’ll probably do well, so it’s… double good.” 

Jughead nods, taking her hand gently and leading her toward the bathroom. He believes her, but there’s still something else in her face, something else in those tears she’d cried, that isn’t the happy-sad feeling of the chapter of her life that included her marriage coming to a close. 

He turns the water on warm, but not too hot, and Betty peels off her dress. She’s wearing matching underwear that’s also yellow, and the back of her bra has a complicated design in white lace that almost looks like angel wings over her shoulder blades. He traces fingers lightly over that lace before he unhooks her bra. 

In the shower, Betty scrubs her face and tilts her chin up under the spray of water, letting it wash over her skin. Jughead runs sudsy hands gently over her shoulders and down her arms, resisting the urge to press his erection up against her. 

She turns abruptly to face him and the water runs through her hair, darkening it. He can see every faint freckle on her face beneath droplets of water that cling to her skin. Her hand wraps around him, snug and sure, and he touches her elbow, trying to tell her, without words, that she doesn’t have to, but she’s already moving her hand and his forehead drops to her shoulder as he exhales sharply. Beneath the sound of the shower’s spray hitting the bottom of the tub, he can hear quiet hitching in her breathing, and he doesn’t know if it’s arousal or sadness or something else altogether. She’s still wearing the ring, on the very hand she’s now jerking him off with.

He comes almost embarrassingly quickly over her hand and her stomach. When she turns to rinse herself off, he brushes his fingertips over the ridges of her spine. He gets the sense that she has something on the tip of her tongue, and he wants to encourage her to speak without rushing her. 

After Jughead takes his turn under the water, Betty slips her arms around him in a hug, pressing their bodies close together. He dips his head to kiss the curve of her neck and the underside of her jaw. 

She says something, so softly that he doesn’t hear it, and he lifts a hand to cup the back of her head. “What?” 

She sighs. Her body is warm against his, her skin damp. “I’m terrifed,” she says quietly. 

He leans his cheek against the side of her head. “Of what?”

Betty’s nails dig into his skin, just a little. “Us.” 

Jughead pulls back slightly to look into her face, his fingers in her wet hair. “Baby, don’t - ”

“I know we were teenagers,” she says, interrupting him. “I know that everything feels so dramatic then, so much worse. When you broke up with me I felt like I was dying and maybe that’s because I was sixteen, but maybe it’s not, and…” Her teeth dig hard into her bottom lip. “And I can’t do that again. I don’t have it in me to go through that again.” 

He studies her face, so beautiful, so unsure, her green eyes like twin question marks. “So don’t do it again, Betts,” he says softly, settling his hands on her hips. “Don’t go through it again. Be with me. Be… my girlfriend. I won’t break your heart.” 

“I don’t think that’s something you can just promise, Juggie.” 

He shakes his head; a lock of his wet hair falls into his face and Betty lifts a hand to push it back. “I’ve loved you since I was fifteen, Betts. I’ll keep loving you forever.” 

“That didn’t matter, though, did it? When we were younger. It didn’t matter how much we loved each other.”

Jughead smiles slightly. “I’m not as stupid now. I won’t make any bad decisions in a misguided effort to save you.” 

She looks away for a beat, gaze turned inward, and then meets his eyes again. “I want to believe that.” 

He leans in and touches his forehead to hers. “So believe it.” He tilts his chin forward and kisses her softly. The water has been beating down in the exact same places on Jughead’s skin for long enough now that it’s almost starting to hurt, but Betty is kissing him like she just might believe him, so he doesn’t dare move. 

Jughead puts his hands on her cheeks and looks right into her eyes like he did so many years ago, standing in her childhood bedroom, summoning the courage to kiss her. “I want you to marry me.” 

Betty’s lips twitch - he can’t tell if it’s a hint of a smile or the threat of tears. “You keep saying that,” she murmurs. 

“I mean it.”

“Jug, I _just_ got divorced.” 

“Not now,” he agrees. “Not for a while, probably. It might be a good idea to actually be in a relationship first, since I’m apparently not even your boyfriend. But I’m serious. I mean it.” 

“Juggie,” she says in that soft, tender way of hers, the way that makes something inside him turn to mush. 

He kisses her again, and again, and again, short kisses against her growing smile. “Marry me someday, Betty Cooper.” 

Her forehead creases, her expression a mix of affection and incredulity. “Is that a _proposal_?” 

“What, do you want me to kneel?” 

“Do _not_ do that,” she says, grabbing his upper arms as if that will stop him. 

He can’t help a small smile at the mildly panicked look on her face. “It’s… a promise,” he says, winding a lock of her wet hair around two fingers and giving it a gentle tug. 

Betty’s eyes are intent on his face, and when she breathes out it’s as though she’s seen something there, in his smile or in his eyes, an answer - one that satisfies her. With the slightest upward tilt of her own lips she asks, “Yeah?” 

Jughead chuckles quietly and gives her hair another little tug, this one teasing. “Yeah.”

 

 

While Betty is still fast asleep in the morning, curled up cozily in his bed like she belongs there, Jughead lazily browses the internet on his phone. The gosisp websites are buzzing about Archie’s show, and the headline he stumbles across blares _ARCHIE ANDREWS SINGS TOUCHING NEW SINGLE ABOUT MOVING ON, SHARES EMOTIONAL EMBRACE WITH EX-WIFE_ , complete with an ever-so-slighlty blurry picture of Archie and Betty hugging.

Out of morbid curiosity, Jughead reads the comment section and finds two major threads of conversation: one in which commenters are praising the maturity of the whole interaction, and the other in which commenters are angrily declaring that Archie is their _favourite ever_ and Betty is the worst person in the world for breaking his heart, despite the fact that Archie's continually asserted, in countless interviews, that his divorce was mutual and amicable. The overall sentiment beneath the arguments seems to be that people like the song, which, Jughead supposes, is the most important thing. 

His phone buzzes with a text message and he quickly turns the volume off, glancing over at Betty, who’s thankfully still sound asleep, unbothered by the noise. The text is from Archie and it says _hey you awake?_

_yeah,_ Jughead writes back, _what’s up?_

_you left with betty last night?_

He pauses, but replies honestly: _yes_. 

_she okay? she was crying._

_happy-ish tears,_ Jughead writes. _she thinks the song is great._

There’s about a minute without a reply, and then Archie writes, _i want her to be happy. i want you to be happy. if its with each other then its with each other._

_thank you, Arch_ , Jughead types, and means it sincerely. 

_its just tough._

_I know man._

_im gonna need some space._

_understandable._

_i still feel stupid._

With a grimace, Jughead says, _I feel like shit about that._

_its ok i guess_ , Archie writes, and while Jughead’s trying to think of a response, another message comes through: _you’re always my brother jug._

Jughead smiles faintly and replies, _same to you Archie._ He send that message and then types another: _I owe you a bro hug._

_you owe me a real hug and like 20 pizzas._

Jughead snorts a laugh. _we’ll negotiate._

 

 

Once she’s awake, Betty manages to locate the ingredients for pancakes in his kitchen and starts whipping up batter while Jughead makes coffee. The radio is on, and as they putter around the kitchen together things feel easy, domestic. Betty doesn’t mention their heavy conversation in the shower last night, but she skims a hand over his back when she walks by him, and that tells him that she’s still in this, no matter how scared she might be. 

She’s flipping pancakes, leaning one hip against the counter and talking idly about a movie she thinks they should go see, when Jughead’s gaze zeroes in on her hands and he notices that the ring she’d been wearing yesterday, the ring he gave her years ago just days before he let her go, is no longer on her right hand, but on her left. 

He can’t find the words to comment on it or to ask her about it. There could be a million explanations. Maybe her right hand is swollen. Maybe she’s so used to her wedding rings that she’d put any ring on that hand automatically, especially if she was getting dressed in someone else's apartment, out of her normal routine. Maybe she sees no real significance in which hand or finger a ring is worn on (this one, admittedly, is not very plausible). Maybe she moved it while she was cooking for some reason. Maybe it’s cheaper than he’d thought at seventeen and it was turning her finger green. 

Or maybe she’s saying something, wordlessly - to him, or even to herself. 

They eat pancakes and drink coffee and watch the morning news and he doesn’t say anything about it. Betty gets dressed and kisses him goodbye and he doesn’t utter a word. 

 

 

After she’s gone, he sits down and writes until three the next morning, barely even stopping for food, all of the words that wouldn’t leave his lips spilling out of his fingers instead, typed into a Word document, backed up on the cloud. 

 

 

tbc.


	10. Chapter 10

Spring settles over the city. Some days it pours rain, and on others the sun beats down and there’s a hint of the stifling summer heat that only exists in a concrete jungle. Archie’s new single is a success, Veronica is constantly jetting off to Montreal, and Jughead is in love with Betty Cooper. 

He hasn’t told her as much, but he thinks she knows, and though she hasn’t said a word, she’s been wearing her worry ring consistently, and he knows that means something - he hopes it means she loves him, too. 

Betty spends nearly every Friday and Saturday night in his bed, buried under his blankets because she always gets cold. She usually wants to get up early on Sundays and do something - go get coffee at a new place she’s heard about, visit a farmer’s market and buy more bunches of kale than any reasonable human could ever need, stroll through a used bookstore. Jughead always does his best to convince her to stay in bed, mouth on her neck, hands sliding over her skin, but he doesn’t always win. It turns out Betty can switch gears remarkably quickly, pinned underneath him one moment, all sleepy smile and bedroom eyes, and hopping into her clothes and looking up directions to some art gallery opening the next. 

Today, they’re supposed to go to brunch with Veronica and Cheryl, and Jughead wants more than ever to stay cocooned in bed with Betty, breathing in the faint smell of her shampoo and putting his mouth on every part of her body. He’d write sonnets about her morning breath if she’d just stay in bed with him - the last thing he wants is to attend another brunch with Cheryl Blossom. 

“She’ll be nicer this time,” Betty assures him, her eyes all bright with encouragement. “She promised Veronica.” 

“I’m not sure Cheryl has a ‘nice’ setting,” Jughead mumbles, still wishing he was in bed as he tugs on jeans. “More like ‘smiling but still evil.’” 

Betty’s already fully clothed in a pair of tight jeans and blue-and-white striped sweater. She looks utterly refreshed. “It’s important to Ronnie.” 

“But we already know Cheryl,” he protests. “We’ve already approved of their relationship. I don’t see why this is necessary.”

“It’s supposed to be _fun_ , Juggie,” she says, smiling. “People love brunch.” 

“Yuppies love brunch,” he corrects, tugging a henley over his head. 

“I love brunch,” Betty says, moving toward him. She straightens the shoulders of his shirt and smooths it over his chest before hooking her fingers into his belt loops, a movement that presses their hips lightly together. He resists the urge to throw her back down on the bed. “And you love… ” She trails off, her eyes locked with his for a moment before she breaks eye contact and says, “You love food.” 

He puts his arms around her and pulls her even closer, so that her breasts press against his chest. “I do love food,” he agrees, and kisses her. 

She sinks into the kiss like she’s been waiting for it, like she’s hungry for him, and he wonders yet again why they’re going to the Upper East Side for brunch when he could just have her breakfast. “So you have to go,” she says against his mouth, words all breathy. Her leg lifts slightly, her foot brushing up his calf, and this is a tell of hers that he knows well - it’s a movement that indicates that she wants to wrap her legs around his waist. “For food.” 

Jughead’s not about to ignore her signals, so he hooks his hands under her thighs, eager to give her what she wants, but she giggles, shifting out of his grasp. 

“Juggie, we _can’t_.” 

“I think we can,” he says, and in one smooth movement picks her up, throwing her over his shoulder to the sound of her squealing protests and then depositing her on his bed, stretching his body out over hers immediately, his hand sneaking under her shirt and then under her bra. 

“Jughead,” she says, trying to sound stern. She turns her face so that his lips land on her cheek. “We’re going to be late.” 

“Uh-huh,” he says absently, his other hand busy undoing her jeans. He slides fingers into her panties and he smirks against her skin, triumphant, when he finds her wet. “I knew it.” 

“Well, you - you were looking at me like - ” 

“Like what, baby?” he asks, tugging her jeans down her hips. 

“Like… ” She watches him as he takes off his own pants, her eyes darkening, and it’s not until he’s between her legs again that she murmurs, hesitant, “Like you really love food.” 

He stills for a moment, looking into those dark eyes of hers; they’re pinned on his face, full of trust. He kisses her soft and slow and feels her hands sink into his hair. “I’m crazy about food, Betts,” he tells her. “I love food so much.” 

Her lashes flutter over her eyes and she tilts her chin up for another kiss. She says, “Fuck me,” right into his mouth, and then, remembering the damn brunch, adds, “Fast.”

 

 

They’re only ten minutes late getting to the restaurant, but Betty apologizes profusely anyway, leaning down to give both Cheryl and Veronica quick hugs. Jughead just offers them a small wave of his hand and sits across from Veronica, which he feels is safer than putting himself directly in Cheryl’s line of fire. 

“It’s only a few minutes, B, don’t worry about it,” Veronica says, waving away Betty’s apologies. 

“Yes,” Cheryl says dryly. “Who doesn’t enjoy waiting?” 

Veronica quirks an eyebrow at her and Cheryl quirks one of her own eyebrows right back. Jughead has to battle the sudden urge to grin; Ronnie’s really met her match. After a beat Veronica rolls her eyes. “Well, I, for one,” she says, “am glad you got that out of your systems before you came to meet us.” 

Betty blinks, looking up from the menu she’s been examining. “Got what out of our systems?” she asks. 

Looking at her own menu, Veronica says blithely, “The quickie you obviously just had,” and Betty seems to choke on her own spit. Veronica looks up at her, eyes sparkling. “I’m not _blind_ , Betts.” 

“This is ruining my appetite,” Cheryl says pointedly, and Veronica grins devilishly but says nothing more. 

Once they’ve all ordered, Cheryl picks up her mimosa and takes a sip. “So Archie got a new hit out of his heartbreak, hm?”

Betty slides her a look that’s a touch exasperated but not angry. “You’re as bad as his teenage fans. He’s not heartbroken. We _both_ decided to get divorced.” 

“Of course, sweetie,” Cheryl agrees, in a tone that’s not at all agreeable, “but one person always _decides_ just a little more, don’t they?” 

Veronica turns to her girlfriend. “This is _exactly_ what I asked you not to do.” 

Cheryl blinks over at her, all false innocence, but her expression shifts into something more sincere when she sees that Veronica’s serious. Jughead rests his arm along the back of Betty’s chair, brushing his hand over her shoulder gently. 

With a sigh, Cheryl turns back to them. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be rude.” She looks at Betty for a moment, rubbing her red lips together, and then says, “I watched Archie pine over you in high school. It just seems unfortunate that it’s happening again.” Her eyes slide over to Jughead. “For the same reason.” 

“It’s complicated,” Betty says quietly. “You know that. I don’t - I don’t want to get into all of it again.” 

Unable to hold his tongue, Jughead says, “You don’t have to.” 

She sends him a small, grateful smile before she looks back at Cheryl. “Divorce isn’t fun. It hurt us both. But Archie’s okay. He's not pining.” She pauses, seeming to consider her next words carefully, and then she says, “I’m not Veronica. And Jug’s not Griff.” 

Cheryl leans back in her chair, and the look on her face is startling in its vulnerability, no scheming gleam in her eyes, no suggestive twist to her mouth. He hasn’t seen Cheryl’s face so open in over a decade, not since she was standing on the ice of Sweetwater River. Veronica reaches over to take Cheryl’s hand, and directs a rueful smile over to him and Betty. 

Cheryl’s eyes flick over Veronica, and then Betty, and then Jughead. She sets her shoulders and lifts her now-empty champagne flute, snapping her fingers at a nearby waiter. “I specifically asked you to keep these coming.” 

Two minutes later Jughead has a mimosa in his hand and the conversation has shifted to a more neutral topic. Under the table, Betty rests her free hand against his thigh, and he can feel the warmth of her palm through his jeans. 

“My stomach is growling. I hope they bring our food soon,” she says softly, glancing around the restaurant. Veronica and Cheryl are laughing together about some memory from when Cheryl lived in New Haven. 

“Yeah, me too.” He puts his hand over hers and leans in closer to her. “I love food,” he says by her ear. 

Betty smiles at him, bright and beautiful, and she’s everything to him in that moment, his whole world - he could even go without breakfast. He can’t help but lean in to kiss her. 

“People are trying to _eat_ in this restaurant,” Cheryl says. “Stop being so nauseating.”

Betty laughs as they pull apart, ducking her head bashfully. Jughead puts his elbows on the table and starts asking Cheryl about the maple syrup mafia.

 

 

He doesn’t talk to Betty about his writing because he’s worried that he’ll jinx it somehow, but he’s completed the first three chapters of a book, and to his surprise, when he reads his own writing over again, for the first time in years, he doesn’t despise every word. 

After an evening of editing, he sends the chapters to his agent. In the subject line of the email he writes _if you say this is the next gone girl, i am deleting it._

This book - at least, the beginning of it - is different than his last. His writing is still sardonic, but there’s a little less grit. That isn’t to say that it’s cheerful, because it’s not, but the edge his first novel had is absent, and there’s something else in its place, something less sharp but faster, sweeping the story along. Despite the fact that he has less time to write now than he did before, what with Betty taking up many of his evenings and all of his weekends, the plot is just _happening_. It’s like the whole narrative already exists, and his only job is to type it all out. 

He and Betty have talked a bit about his first novel. She’s told him all her favourite parts and teased him about the Hitchcock blonde the protagonist is always pretending he doesn’t care about. She showed him her copy, in which she’d scribbled notes in all the margins, but she hadn’t let him read the words scrawled messily in subway cars or while she was falling asleep in bed. When he’s done with this book, he thinks he’ll ask her to trade, and he can read her thoughts about his writing while she reads the story that being with her seems to have brought to life in his head. 

 

 

Standing in the lobby of a movie theatre on a Thursday night, Jughead checks the time on his phone again and glances around. He and Betty agreed to meet at seven for a seven-thirty movie, but it’s now fourteen minutes past the hour and she still hasn’t arrived. He’s bought their tickets, figuring that by the time he did so she’d have appeared, but she still hasn’t.

Almost as soon as he puts his phone back in his pocket, he takes it out again. It’s 7:15. Betty’s never late, unless it’s due to his influence, and he wonders at what time he should start to worry. 

A hand lands on his forearm then, startling him, and he looks up.

“Sorry, Juggie,” Betty says. She sounds somewhat out of breath. 

He smiles at her, putting his phone away again. She looks, tonight, like Beth Andrews, aspiring and ambitious journalist, her makeup done perfectly, a crisp-collared blouse beneath her blazer, blonde hair coiled into a neat chignon. “It’s okay,” he says. “Busy day?”

Her eyebrows lift briefly and then fall as she exhales. “You could say that.” 

Jughead puts a hand to the small of her back, intending to steer her toward the concession stand. “A day that calls for both popcorn _and_ candy? I already got our tickets.” 

“You did?” 

He stops moving, peering into her face and trying to read her expression. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “You’ve been talking about seeing this movie all week, Betts. Did you change your mind?”

“I kind of wanted to… go somewhere and talk,” she says softly, and then pulls up a smile that doesn’t come close to reaching her eyes. “But that’s okay! Let’s watch the movie.” 

“No,” he says slowly, cupping her elbow in his hand, and speaks his realization as he has it: “You’re upset.” 

“It’s okay, Jug, you bought tickets, so - ”

“No,” he says again. “It’s okay. We’ll go talk.” 

Betty frowns a little, looking conflicted and apologetic. “I’ll pay you back. For the tickets.” 

“Don’t be silly, Betts,” he says, leading her toward the exit. “Come on, there’s a bar across the street. Would that be okay?” 

She nods and slips her hand into his, threading their fingers together tightly. 

 

 

They sit at a small, tall table, their chairs high enough that their feet don’t touch the ground. They give their orders to a bored-looking waitress: Jughead asks for a pint of a beer that’s on tap, and Betty gets a gin martini. He’d been looking forward to movie snacks, and he considers suggesting that they order nachos, but something about the tension in the planes of Betty’s face makes the idea die on his tongue. 

He reaches across the table and takes both of Betty’s hands in his own, giving them what he hopes is a reassuring squeeze. She’s wearing her ring, as usual. He’s come to love the feeling of the cool metal against his own hands. 

“What did you want to talk about?” he asks. 

“I have to tell you something.” 

Jughead nods and prompts, “I’m listening.” 

She licks her lips nervously. “I got a job offer.” She exhales through her nose, her breath coming out in quick, uneven bursts. “A real newspaper job, not just a gig writing about feral cats or circus school or other things that no one really reads. My own beat.” 

He feels his eyes widen slightly, and he smiles at her, feeling warm with pride. “Betty, that’s amazing. Congrats.” 

“Thanks,” she whispers. 

His smile fades and he lifts one of his hands, tucking a knuckle under her chin and raising it slightly so that she’ll meet his eyes. “We should be celebrating, baby, shouldn’t we?” 

She releases another one of those shaky breaths. “It’s at the _Globe_.”

For a few seconds, Jughead doesn’t understand, and then, abruptly, he does. “In Boston.” 

Betty nods. The waitress returns and deposits their drinks in front of them. 

“I applied a couple months ago,” Betty explains. “I’ve just - I’ve felt so terrible about my job lately, I feel like I’m getting nowhere. I’ve been applying to everything I can find. I didn’t think I’d get an interview, and then, when I _did_ get the interview… I didn’t tell you because I thought there was no way they’d actually offer it to me.”

“But they did.”

She nods again, looking down into her martini. “They did.” 

Jughead grips his glass for something to do with his hands. “You have to take it,” he manages to say after a moment of silence. 

Betty lifts her head, eyes flying to his face. “Jug - ”

“No - Betty, you have to,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “You know that.” 

“But - ” Her face is the picture of uncertainty, her eyes shining. 

“You have to,” he says steadily, his voice still quiet. 

“But Juggie,” she says, and now the shininess in her eyes is accompanied by a tightness in her throat that he can hear in her voice, “we’ve just really started to…” 

He shrugs and tries to make it look casual, ignoring how his own throat constricts slightly. “Betts, you’re not the girl who gives up her career for a guy. No matter how good he is in bed,” he adds, attempting to tease. “Right?” 

Her face crumples slightly, so Jughead powers on. “Boston’s not even that far. It’s what, four hours?” 

In a small, miserable voice, she says, “It can be closer to five with traffic.” 

“Great,” he says cavalierly, “it’ll give me time to catch up on podcasts.” 

“Juggie,” she whispers. She looks so _sad_ , so young, beneath her carefully-applied makeup, her eyes wide like she’s staring down the barrel of heartbreak. 

Jughead is scared that he’ll cry if she does. He clears his throat. “This is good, Betty. I - I’m so proud of you.” When her lips press together, turning white at their seam, he lifts his glass and proposes a toast. “To you. Getting out there and kicking ass.” 

Looking somewhat reluctant, she lifts her own glass and touches it lightly to his. “Thanks,” she murmurs. 

They both drink nearly half the contents of their glasses, and then set them back on the table. They don’t speak, but Jughead knows, because he _knows_ Betty, knows her like he knows the beat of his own heart, that they’re both thinking the exact same thing, as much as he’s pretending he’s not: that they’re ending before they’ve even begun, all over again. 

 

tbc.


	11. Chapter 11

After accompanying Betty back to her apartment and enveloping her in a hug that seemed to last at least fifteen minutes, Jughead returned to his own apartment and spent a few hours thinking too much to fall asleep - which is why, when he wakes to the sound of someone snapping his name and something whacking his shoulder, it’s an especially terrible and confusing sensation. 

He sits halfway up, his legs tangled in his sheets, and his fist punches outward instinctively, though it doesn’t make contact with anything. He wrenches his eyes open, sleep deprivation’s gift of a dull headache already setting in, and finds Veronica standing next to his bed, purse in hand. 

“What the _fuck_ , Veronica?” he says, finally managing to disentangle himself and sit up fully. 

She looks highly unimpressed with him, maybe even angry. “I told you not to make her cry again,” she says, ignoring his question. “What did you do?” 

Jughead presses a hand over his eyes. “What?” he asks. “What are you talking about? No, scratch that - how the fuck did you get into my apartment?” 

“You gave Betty your spare.” 

He stares at her. “Yeah. I gave _Betty_ my spare key. Fucking Christ, Veronica. Do you not have _any_ boundaries?” 

She sets her purse down and rests her hands atop his mattress, leaning in close to him. “Jughead, _what happened_?” 

“Nothing,” he says. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Bullshit.” Veronica straightens and crosses her arms. “If nothing happened, why did I hear her sobbing last night?”

He sighs and shoves his hair out of his face with an impatient hand. “She got a job.” 

Veronica blinks. “What?” 

“Betty got a job. An actual reporting opportunity. She’s got a chance to start a real career.” When Veronica just keeps staring at him, he adds, “At the _Boston Globe._ ”

“Oh,” Veronica breathes, her mouth dropping open. 

“Yeah. Thanks for assuming I fucked things up, though, Ronnie. That was really great of you. And thanks for scaring the hell out of me at - ” He glances toward the window, trying to analyze the sunlight. “Whatever time it is now.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? Assaulting me with your purse? Breaking and entering?” 

“About Betty,” she says softly, and just like that Jughead’s annoyance dissipates and once again he feels regretful, helpless - sad. 

He shrugs, rubbing his face. “It’s what she’s always wanted.”

Veronica perches on the edge of the bed. “But what about you?” 

“I’m not going to be the reason Betty doesn’t get to be Carl Bernstein.”

“So… she’s going to go?”

“She hasn’t said so, not officially, but… yeah. She’s got to.” 

“Long distance isn’t too bad,” Veronica says gently. “Cheryl and I are doing it.” 

“Yeah.” He sighs again. “I told her we’d make it work.” 

Veronica finally has the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry I hit you.” 

He lifts his eyebrow at her. 

She huffs. “And I’m sorry I took Betty’s key to your place, and I’m sorry I broke in, and I’m sorry I woke you up.” Her face softens. “And I really am sorry about Boston.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Ronnie.” 

“If you want to throw some clothes on, I’ll buy you a breakfast burrito,” she offers. 

“That’s alright. I’m going to try and get some more sleep.” 

She nods and starts to get up but then changes her mind; she sits back down and wraps her arms around him a hug. 

Jughead pats her back and then gently extracts himself from her hold. “I’m okay. Go terrorize the rest of the city.” 

Veronica smiles at him and says, reassuring and firm, “I’ll see you soon, I’m sure,” before she heads for the door. 

Once she’s gone, Jughead checks his phone. It’s quarter after eight and Betty hasn’t texted him, so he sets an alarm for ten and closes his eyes again, wanting to be a least a little rested by the time he has to go to work. 

 

 

In the evening, Betty calls and tells him, “I gave my two weeks.” 

“Good, that’s good,” he says. Her voice sounds so small, almost shaky. “When do they want you in Boston?

“The eighth.” 

That’s two weeks and two days. “Wow.” 

He hears her exhale heavily. “Jughead, I feel like maybe I shouldn’t have taken it.” 

“Betty, don’t do that. Of course you should have. You’re not going to write about feral cats for the rest of your life.” 

“I should’ve just taken a bit more time to think about it,” she insists. “Because now I’m beginning to wonder - ”

“Betts,” he interrupts gently. “If we weren’t - if you didn’t have me to think about, if I wasn’t a factor, would you take it?”

She’s quiet for a long moment before she says, reluctantly, “Yes.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Because it’s the right choice for you.” He can imagine the look on her face, that trying-not-to-cry expression of hers that always tugs at something in his gut. “Baby, I’m going to miss you more than I can even say, but you’re doing the right thing. I said I wouldn’t make any more stupid decisions because of you. So don’t make one because of me.” 

“Okay,” she whispers. 

_I love you_ , he wants to say, but he hasn’t said it to her yet, and some part of him is still unprepared. 

“Veronica’s mom is insisting she go to a charity gala on Friday,” Betty says after a few beats of silence. “She wants us to come with her; she’s worried there might be some Griff-related gossip.” 

“Okay.” 

“You’ll come?” she asks, and the question is so real, so genuine, like she honestly doubts his answer. 

“Yeah. Even though I have a feeling you’re about to tell me I have to wear a tux.” 

“Veronica said she has your measurements,” Betty says apologetically. 

He sighs. “I should’ve gone to a tailor of my own choosing and burned the measurements afterwards,” he says, and when she laughs softly, just a little, it makes his heart feel lighter. “Of course I want to be your date, Betts. We’re still… ”

“What?” she murmurs. “We’re still what?”

Jughead closes his eyes and sees her fifteen-year-old face, her soft white sweater, her tight ponytail, green eyes glimmering with expectation, _what?_ falling from her lips as she peered at him. He remembers his hands on her cheeks and how he was, in that moment, totally gone, completely done for. Sometimes it’s like that feeling has never left him, not even for a day. 

“Elizabeth,” he says very softly. He hears a little hitch in her breathing. “I - ”

“Oh!” Betty says abruptly, and the beginning of her next sentence is faded, like her mouth is away from her phone. “Juggie, I’m so sorry, the _Globe_ is calling,” she says in a rush. 

“Take it,” he says easily. After she says goodbye and hangs up he just holds his phone in his hand, standing listlessly by his window, staring out into the street. 

This is technically his writing time, and he should sit down at his laptop, crack his knuckles and get to work, but he feels as though he’s forgotten how to string words together.

 

 

Betty opens the door when he arrives at the apartment she shares with Veronica in the tuxedo Veronica had sent over for him. The bowtie is still in his pocket, partially because he’s hoping he can get away without putting it on, and partially because he’d watched five different YouTube tutorials and still can’t quite figure out how to tie it correctly. 

His jaw drops when he looks at her. Her floor-length dress is the softest of pinks, strapless with an alluring little dip in the middle of the neckline. 

“Jug,” she says softly, and he quickly pulls his gaze from her cleavage up to her face. 

“Sorry,” he says, a touch sheepishly. “You look - wow.”

She smiles but doesn’t say anything, and when she steps aside to let him in he realizes why - Archie’s standing a few feet behind her, staring at his phone. 

“Archie, hey,” he says, nudging the door closed behind him with a foot. He glances at Betty inquisitively. 

“V asked Archie to be her date,” Betty explains in the too-chipper voice she gets sometimes. 

“Yes,” Veronica says, stepping into the foyer then in a black gown, her hair elaborately styled in a way that looks vaguely Grecian to Jughead. “I realized that you two might get distracted, so I asked Archiekins to be my escort.” 

In other circumstances, Jughead would say, _of the three of us, Veronica, who here is_ really _the most likely to get distracted?_ , but in these circumstances, he knows ‘distracted’ is a euphemism for ‘flirtatious,’ so he keeps his mouth shut. Veronica looks him over from head to toe and frowns. 

“Where’s your bow tie?” 

He sighs and takes it out of his pocket. Veronica marches over, snatches it out of his hand, and then flips up the collar of his shirt so that she can put it on him. 

“She did this to me too,” Archie says with a small smile, genuine if fleeting. Jughead echoes that smile with one of his own - the fact that Archie is speaking to him is a step in the right direction. 

When Veronica’s satisfied with her work, she folds his collar back down and smoothes it out. “There. You look presentable.” Her phone beeps and she takes it out of her clutch. “Perfect timing. The car is here.” 

“Ladies first,” Archie says, gesturing toward the door. Veronica smiles and loops her arm through Betty’s. Jughead and Archie follow behind. They don’t speak, but the silence isn’t exactly uncomfortable. Jughead exists in it easily and spends the elevator ride looking at the wisps of hair at Betty’s neck that have escaped from her updo. There’s something so delicate about them, something almost sad, that causes a momentary ache in his throat. 

He wonders if this is how it works. He got Betty back and lost Archie in the process. By the time he and Archie are on solid ground again, Betty will be gone. 

“Juggie?” Betty’s voice interrupts his thoughts. She’s standing outside of the elevator, one hand held in front of its door to trigger the sensors so that it doesn’t close. “Are you coming?” 

He realizes that Archie and Veronica are already halfway across the lobby, heading for the building’s doors. “Yeah. Sorry,” he says, stepping out of the elevator. 

“You look handsome,” she says quietly. 

“Thanks.” He catches her hand with his own, lifting it to his lips so that he can kiss her knuckles. He drops it again before they reach the car.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, the gala is not exactly Jughead’s scene. There are three long-winded speeches before dinner is served; the first item is cold soup, which he hates; when they finally make it to dessert, it’s _fancy_ desert, a tiny piece of chocolate something topped with a single blackberry. He’ll never really be comfortable in Veronica’s social world, where women walk about in dresses that cost more than he makes in three months and men scrawl lazy signatures in their chequebooks, donating thousands to the cause of the night. He feels like an imposter in his tux, and it’s in moments like these that he feels naked, exposed, and misses his beanie. 

Betty is the only part of the evening he finds enjoyable. She sits next to him looking impossibly beautiful, like a painting brought to life, and occasionally her hand settles to rest on his leg under the tablecloth. She lets him eat her minuscule dessert. 

 

 

While Betty and Veronica are making the rounds, laughing politely at the words of a red-faced, grey-haired man, Archie returns to the table with a fresh drink and sits down not in his own seat but in Betty’s empty chair. 

“Quite the party,” Jughead says casually.

“I just heard a dude talking about his Lamborghinis. _Lamborghinis._ Plural.” 

“Yeah, the conspicuous consumption is… a little much.” 

There’s a beat, and then Archie says, “Hey, so… Ronnie told me about Boston.” 

Jughead knows his surprise at this conversational turn must show on his face. “She did?”

“Yeah.” Archie takes a sip of his drink. “Sucks, man.”

“Yeah. It does.” Jughead smiles faintly. “Thanks for saying so, Arch.” 

“I meant what I said. Or… wrote. What I texted.” Archie shifts in his chair, looking a bit uncomfortable. “Besides my parents, you guys are… the people I love most in the world. How could I not want you to be happy?” He sighs. “I guess… maybe that’s what you were thinking? When you told me to go ahead and ask her out?” 

Jughead nods. “I still want you to be happy, Archie. And I think I can safely say that Betty does too.” 

Archie huffs a laugh. “Yeah, she’s only told me about two hundred times.” 

Jughead smiles. Automatically, his eyes seek out Betty in the crowd. She’s still with Veronica, in a conversation with someone else now, nodding seriously. 

“Long distance works out for lots of people, man,” Archie says. 

“Yeah,” Jughead says, though he’s pretty certain that _lots_ is an exaggeration. He watches Betty for another brief moment and then turns back to Archie. “How’s the album coming?” he asks, and that carries the conversation until the girls return. 

 

 

“Come dance with me, Archiekins,” Veronica says, holding her hands out when she and Betty return to the table. Archie gets up and Veronica leads him off, adding, “Don’t step on my feet.”

Betty hovers by the table for a beat, not sitting down, and Jughead smiles at her knowingly. “You want to dance.”

“No,” she says quickly, “we don’t have to.” 

“You want to, though.” 

A little smile sneaks onto her lips. “Just one song?” she asks hopefully. 

He gets up and takes her hand. “For you, Betts, I’ll dance for two.” 

Dancing isn’t one of his talents to begin with, and this kind of formal dancing - Betty’s hand in his, her other hand on his shoulder, his on her waist - would probably be downright uncomfortable if not for Betty’s pleased smile. A little bit of the glitter in her eyeshadow has fallen onto her cheeks, which is probably something she’d want to fix if he pointed it out, but she looks like she’s sparkling. 

“This is nice,” she says warmly, and then she laughs, glancing over at Archie and Veronica. “It feels like high school.” 

He’s reminded then of her impending departure and he holds in a sigh. “Yeah, it does,” he says, offering her a smile. Just like high school: Betty in his arms one day, looking at him like he hung the moon, and gone soon after, no longer there for him to hold. 

The song ends, and they pull apart to clap for the band. 

 

 

When Veronica finally says they can leave, she announces that she and Archie are heading to a bar to meet Cheryl and one of her friends who is apparently interested in hooking up with singer-songwriter Archie Andrews. Jughead and Betty decline the invitation to accompany them, heading back to the Upper West Side apartment instead. 

In Betty’s bedroom, he helps her out of her dress. He takes off his own clothes and, in nothing but her underwear, she carefully arranges his pants and jacket over a hanger and zips them into a garment bag. The second she sets the hanger on the rod in her closet, his hands are on her waist, his mouth on her neck. She sighs happily, lifting a hand and sinking it into his hair as she leans back against him. 

Jughead bends her over right there, tugs her underwear down her legs and moves inside of her, relishes her soft cries and the needy way she says _please, Juggie_. He makes sure to get her off before he comes, and then they fall into her bed for round two. 

This time he covers her body with his own, her legs hitched up on either side of him, and he watches her face as he thrusts into her and she starts to unravel. Her nails rake down his back and her lashes flutter, her eyes closing. 

“Betty,” he says, just her name and nothing more, but her eyes open again and she seems to understand everything in those two syllables. Their eyes lock, and he gets the timing just right, slipping a hand between them to touch her, and she’s still looking right into his eyes as they come together. 

Afterward, she curls up against his side, her head on his chest, and he cards his fingers lazily through her hair, now out of its updo. They’re quiet, sleepy and satiated, and he’s just starting to drift off when he feels moisture on his skin beneath her cheek. 

“Baby?” he asks softly, but she doesn’t reply, so Jughead lets her pretend she isn’t crying and just keeps stroking her hair, his hand moving steadily, until she falls asleep. 

 

 

When there’s a knock on his door at the crack of dawn, Jughead groans extravagantly, pressing his face into his pillow. He is abruptly and nonsensically angry with Betty and Archie for cementing Veronica Lodge’s presence in his life - he needs _sleep_. 

“No,” he says firmly into his pillow, though there’s no chance that it’s audible through his door. 

The knocking comes again, more insistent this time, and he lifts his head, scowling. He hasn’t done anything to upset Betty - apart from her departure to Boston weighing down on them, and the tears she didn’t want to acknowledge, last night was good, the dancing and the quiet conversation and the sex. He would have slept over if he didn’t have an early event to attend at the school he works for, which is much closer to his place than to Betty and Veronica’s. He doesn’t want a breakfast burrito. There is no longer any reason for Veronica to barge into his life with Cheryl-related problems. He should be in a REM cycle right now. 

Grumpy and reluctant, he hauls himself out of bed, not bothering to put a shirt on, and trudges to the door. His eyes are still half-shut as he opens it and says, “At least you didn’t just let yourself in this time.” 

Standing in his hallway is Betty, a small, confused frown forming on her face at his words. She’s got her hands balled into fists. “I, um - I can’t find my key. I don’t think it’s lost; it’s probably just somewhere in all my packing clutter.” 

Jughead blinks, opening his eyes wide in an effort to feel more awake. He shakes his head. “Ronnie has it.” 

“What?” Betty asks, then shakes her head, too. “Never mind.” 

Now that he’s a bit more alert, he takes her in. She’s wearing jeans with rips at the knees that he knows are her ‘weekend pants,’ and an old Riverdale High shirt that he’s pretty sure she sleeps in sometimes under a long cardigan. She doesn’t appear to have washed her face since last night, lips chapped and makeup smudged around her eyes. 

He frowns, reaching out toward her, settling a hand against her hip. “Hey. Are you okay?” 

“Not exactly.”

He steps aside. “Come in.” 

She doesn’t move. She appears to be holding her breath, and she’s clenching her fists so tightly that her knuckles are turning white. When Jughead notices, he reaches toward her hands, alarmed, and at the exact same moment Betty says, “Come with me.” 

He freezes, both hands extended halfway toward hers. “What?”

Betty swallows, and he can see her forcing herself to be brave. “Come with me to Boston.” 

“Come with you to Boston,” he repeats. 

She nods, releasing her hands from their fists. “Maybe - maybe not right this second, if you can’t leave your job, but the school year’s over really soon, and - ” She shrugs, shoulders trembling. “I want you to come with me.” She looks down at her feet, draws in a breath, and then looks at him again, hope in her eyes and heart on her sleeve like the girl she was back in Riverdale. “I love you.” 

Jughead’s arm goes around her, hauling her against him and holding her close, and his other hand lifts to cup her cheek. He kisses her so hard that he bends her backward a bit, both of her hands coming up to rest on his cheeks. 

When the kiss breaks and he pulls back a bit so that she’s steady on her feet, Betty says, breathless, “Is that a yes?” 

He kisses her again, his tongue slipping into her mouth and his hand moving down to her ass. 

“Juggie,” she breathes against his mouth. 

He sinks his fingers into her hair. “Marry me,” he says before he gives her another kiss. 

She smiles into it and pulls back, setting her hands on his shoulders. “That’s not an answer.” 

Jughead ducks in for another kiss, unable to help himself. “Neither is that.” 

“Are we at an impasse?” 

He shakes his head and kisses her - her mouth, her cheeks, her nose, her chin, her forehead. She giggles softly and he says, “Of course I want to go to Boston with you, Betty.”

“Then - ” She rests her fingertips against his jaw. “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

Jughead lifts his eyebrows. “Why didn’t you?” 

Her scowl is so adorable that he has to kiss her again. This time, he pulls her into his apartment and shuts the door behind her, backing her up against it. Her foot, still in her shoe, slides up his calf, and in one smooth movement she gives a little hop and he hooks hands under her thighs, holding her up as he legs wrap tightly around him. 

She winds her arms around his neck, her eyes moving over his face slowly, searching. “Say you love me,” she says quietly. 

Giving her a soft kiss, he says, “I love… food.” 

“Juggie,” she huffs. 

He nudges another kiss against her mouth and one of her hands lifts to the back of his head, her fingers tugging at his hair lightly as the kiss deepens. “I love you, Elizabeth,” he says when they finally pull apart. 

Her lips stretch into a beautiful grin and she curls her arms more tightly around him, tucking her face into his neck like her happiness is embarrassing. He kisses her ear and closes his eyes, holding her close. 

After a moment, he says, “Hey, Betty?” 

“Mmhm?” 

He breathes her in, hints of last night’s perfume and all the scents that are simply her own. _This is going to last forever_ , he thinks, and says, “Thanks for calling me from Hoboken.” 

 

 

fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for taking this ride with me!
> 
> There will be a 4th instalment in this series. The first chapter will probably be up in a couple weeks.


End file.
